Flipping The Denver Symphony Orchestra !

 Back in the late 1970s my good friend Mark T. and I were roommates sharing a small apartment in Colorado Springs.

With both of us being heavily into music, our stereo and record turntable were in constant use. 

Mark owned an LP recording of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony which we played to death.

The odd thing about this particular recording was that the entire work was crammed onto a two-sided LP.

This meant that the 3rd Movement of the symphony was split in half between side one and side two.  We played that record so many times that we were quite familiar with the note that ended side one, and at which the record had to be flipped to continue on with the movement on side two.

In 1977, we learned that the Denver Symphony Orchestra was scheduled to perform the 9th at the newly constructed Boeschert Hall in downtown Denver.

Mark wanted to take his Mom to the concert. I don't  recall if it was a birthday or Mother's Day gift for her.  Anyhow, we bought three tickets.

On the evening of the concert we arrived at the venue only to discover that the seats we had been assigned were in a section occupied by the large choir necessary for the performance. 

The Hall management recognized the oversight, and promptly assigned us new seats, but we had to be seperated since there were not three adjacent spaces available.

Mark and his mom were placed in awesome seats just behind and slightly left of the conductor!  

My seat was on the first row of a low balcony overlooking the orchestra's violin section.

I could literally lean forward and read the score on the music stand of the nearest violinist!

Mark and I had visual contact with one another.....

The concert progressed, to our immense enjoyment. Finally, the largo 3rd movement arrived.

When it reached the section that marked the familiar record-flipping time, I happened to glance over at Mark.

He looked up at me with a huge grin on his face and, right on cue, made the motion of picking up an LP record by its edges and flipping it over!

I had to maintain my dignity and suppress a chuckle.

The rest of the concert blew us away, especially the epic awesomeness of of the choral finale. The Denver Symohony absolutely killed it, despite being 'flipped over' in the middle of the performance!

I would wager that this was the first time in history that a couple of audience members found humor in the absolute softest passage of the Third Movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symohony!

Cheers!