They played Pathetique when we needed Eroica

Gutted. Absolutely gutted. The players did their best in a difficult situation, but simply weren’t up to it. An entire performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony only comes along every three or four years and on Saturday night we knew from the start that it wasn’t looking good. It wasn’t just the wind players who blew it. Normally simple passages of play were riddled with basic errors from the strings, and the low brass and percussion in the engine room couldn’t handle the constant pressure.

The Ninth is a marathon, and the first movement obviously over-extended all concerned, so that by the time the finale came along the players and singers ran out of puff and had nothing left in the tank. Of course, the conductor, Stephan ‘‘Scherzo’’ Hasson, must take the lion’s share of the blame for slower-than-usual tempos in the preceding eight symphonies, which led the players to a certain complacency and lack of fitness and finesse when faced with the presto in the final movement.

Forget a North American tour, forget the Lucerne Festival, forget a lucrative contract with the Arts Channel, forget a Deutsche Gramophone boxed set; these will be picked up by English, Welsh and South African orchestras. The dreams are over. This is the end of the road for the next four years.

While players and administrators are scratching their heads as to what went wrong, the country is in mourning. On Sunday, at the usual morning rugby practices and training runs throughout the country, classical music fans were a no-show, unable to get out of bed.

Many had hangovers, and a German-themed classical music bar in Auckland, The Brahms and Liszt, was vandalised by angry fans the night before with ‘‘Bugger Beethoven’’ being crudely graffitied on the gents’ bathroom walls. DHBs reported that emergency departments were busier than usual thanks to angry fans, especially in music-mad Khandallah and Remuera.

‘‘I know classical music’s a bit of a religion in this country,’’ said police community co-ordinator Clara Schumann, ‘‘but our data shows violence increases markedly when the orchestra and the opera have a bad night.’’ Restaurants and bars have reported that they expect takings to be down during the upcoming live-streamed Mozart opera series and the Ring Cycle thanks to the disappointing performance of the New Zealanders.

Air New Zealand is expected to pull its overly optimist ‘‘fly through all the symphonies’’ ads soon, and is considering sponsoring theatre and other art forms instead. Spark’s coverage continues to be controversial.

‘‘There’s a brilliant high alto trombone entry in the finale of the Fifth,’’ said Churton Park fan Pete Boulez, ‘‘and the clowns from Spark go close up on the cor anglais. Typical. And the post-concert comments from that Concert FM muppet are way off the standard we’ve come to expect from other channels.’’

But the bad weekend wasn’t just about the below-standard performance in Symphony Hall. The ballet company also had a shocker. ‘‘I doubt they’ll be invited back to China after Saturday’s Swan Lake and I suspect they won’t even qualify for the Sadler’s Wells festival,’’ said arts journalist Ngaire Fonteyn. She blamed the poor results on attitude. ‘‘The prima ballerinas are sitting around acting like a bunch of prima ballerinas.’’

Anna Kanikani blamed the hard dancefloors. ‘‘This happens every time we attempt a major ballet,’’ said the choreographer as she trawled through the bad reviews. ‘‘Yes, we get millions of dollars in corporate sponsorship every year, and I know sporting bodies are brassed off because they often miss out, but perhaps the government needs to look at directly funding us if we wish to remain world-class.’’

People in other fields were less sympathetic. ‘‘Sure, I’m a music fan, but when you look at it it’s just a bloody concert,’’ said rugby coach Wolfgang Sebastian. ‘‘They should get over it and realise there are a lot of other things in life, such as rugby, rugby league, netball and soccer.’’

‘‘At the end of the day, it was a concert of four movements,’’ said principal violist Richie McStrauss. ‘‘Sure, we were outplayed in the finale and disappointed millions of New Zealanders, but music was the winner on the day.’’

Colleague Sonny Bill Walton agrees. ‘‘People say professionalism is killing the arts, and they may have a point,’’ said the clarinettist as he packed away his reeds. ‘‘The thing to focus on is the grass roots. Little kids getting up early in the morning, walking in the cold to their recorder or Suzuki violin lesson. Sure, it’s good to spend the big bucks on overseas soloists, but let’s not forget the kids; the amateurs; the stuff going on at home.’’

‘‘It’s not the end of the world,’’ said double bass coach Stephen Foster. ‘‘Besides,’’ he added with a wry smile, ‘‘you’ve got to put these things in perspective. The Aussie orchestra had to pack up and go home halfway through Schumann’s Fourth, whereas we almost got to the end of the Ninth.’’

The Aussie orchestra had to pack up and go home halfway through Schumann’s Fourth, whereas we almost got to the end of the Ninth.’’