How’s this for bringing harmony to the digital age?
The video above, originally posted on YouTube over the summer, has gone viral in the past few days as a counterpoint to the controversy over the phone that recently interrupted the New York Philharmonic, promoting the conductor to bring Mahler’s Ninth Symphony to a halt.
This latest video features the classic Nokia ringtone, which also makes it a nice product placement for the company as it makes its return to the U.S. market with Microsoft’s Windows Phone. When the violist hears the ringtone, he pauses but then turns it into a duet.
As noted by Mashable, there’s some debate over whether the video is authentic, but if it’s a hoax, it’s a good one, posted by a YouTube user who regularly publishes similar videos from classical concerts.
It’s also not implausible that the violist would know the Nokia tune, which was derived from the classical guitar piece Gran Vals, as regular listeners to the GeekWire radio show and podcast know. The song was the subject of a recent “Name that Tech Tune challenge” on our show.
As we reported previously, the Tateuchi Center concert hall, opening in 2014 in Bellevue, says it will be welcoming “nondisruptive” cell phone use by concertgoers during performances. Gran Vals might just be the perfect piece for opening night.
