The ground really moved for one woman during the second movement of the LA Philharmonic’s performance of Tchaikovsky’s 5th Symphony — when she experienced a “loud and full body orgasm.”
Several concertgoers described the woman’s climactic moment Friday from the balcony at the packed Walt Disney Concert Hall.
“Everyone kind of turned to see what was happening,” Molly Grant, who was sitting near the overjoyed woman, told the Los Angeles Times on Sunday.
“I saw the girl after it had happened, and I assume that she … had an orgasm because she was heavily breathing, and her partner was smiling and looking at her — like in an effort to not shame her,” she said.
“It was quite beautiful,” Grant added.
An audio clip purporting to capture the woman’s moment of ecstasy has gone viral.
British composer Magnus Fiennes, brother of actor Ralph Fiennes, also was in attendance.
“A woman in the audience had a loud and full body orgasm during the 5th’s second movement… Band politely carried on,” he said on Twitter.
However, some social media users expressed their doubts about the incident, with one who was present suggesting that the woman had a medical emergency.
Fiennes insisted “it absolutely happened,” writing that he “ran all possible scenarios.”
“Was in close proximity and had no less than 8 other friends coincidentally attending- all had reached a similar conclusion. She remained for the rest of the show, her demeanor was in evidence. My corroborated take is merely an observation. Respect maintained,” he said.
Journalist Jocelyn Silver wrote on Twitter that her friends said the woman “had a SCREAMING orgasm, to the point where the whole orchestra stopped playing. some people really know how to live.”
Classical pianist Sharon Su added in a tweet that she “checked with someone who works at the LA Phil and they confirmed” that the incident was real and that the orchestra did not stop playing during Tchaikovsky’s 5th.
The LA Times reported that its sources and the audio clip corroborated the accounts that the orchestra did not miss a beat during the explosive moment.
It noted that the philharmonic’s online program notes included the following description of the second movement.
“The … luscious main theme was adapted for a popular love song; Tchaikovsky’s skillful orchestration, however, lifts the mood from sentimentality to high Romanticism. The movement’s principal melody is presented in a memorable solo by the horn, followed by other appealing woodwind solos.”
Music agent Lukas Burton told the LA Times that the woman’s loud moan was “wonderfully timed” to a “romantic swell” during the performance.
“One can’t know exactly what happened, but it seemed very clear from the sound that it was an expression of pure physical joy,” Burton told the paper.
“A sort of classical music equivalent of that scene in a movie where someone is talking loudly in a party or a nightclub, and then the record suddenly stops and they say something that everyone hears,” he said.
Burton added that the classic expression of joy was “rather wonderful and refreshing.”
He said there was “a sort of gasp in the audience” but that “everyone felt that was a rather lovely expression of somebody who was so transported by the music that it had some kind of effect on them.”
The Times said it has not been able to identify the woman and that the philharmonic did not immediately respond to its request for comment.
Classical music scholars have noted that the melody of John Denver’s “Annie’s Song” — which includes the lyrics, “You fill up my senses / Come fill me again” — is the horn solo from the second movement of Tchaikovsky’s 5th Symphony.
