Tinnitus, pah! Mahler can make your ears bleed

Would Prokoviev cause personal injury? Could Tchaikovsky cause tinnitus? Let's look at the evidence.

I saw a TV programme last night where the Welsh opera singer Bryn Terfel produced a decibel reading of his prodigious Welsh voice. He registered 117.8db and was touted as being louder than a motorbike, a chainsaw or a football stadium with 30,000 fans inside. However, good old Bryn argued that you wouldn't leave a classical concert with the debilitating hum in your ears that you get from a rock concert.

I spent much of my formative years in clubs and at music concerts, and at a recent sort-of-almost-mid-life point I took to visiting night clubs again to soak up "da vibes" til the wee small hours. But, as I grew older, I noticed less of a tolerance for the noise and in my later years of clubbing, I would wake the next morning with a distinct background hummm that grew progressively worse each time I went.

When I managed to nearly pierce an eardrum by dropping a metal ladder close by and consequently suffering the most annoying tinnitus for nearly a month and a half, I realised that my ears were precious. I have been more careful ever since.

And so, the thought that an opera concert or The Last Night of the Proms could deliver high decibel noise without the risk of causing hearing damage seemed like something worth investigating.

In August, with The Proms in full swing, The Mail Online carried an article with the headline, "Land of elf 'n' safety: EU Proms police order musicians to keep the volume down", in which they discussed the prospect that the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) were "demanding that performers ease off on extra-loud crescendos during the concert series to protect their hearing."

According to the piece an EU directive, passed in April, now sees the BBC responsible for making sure the performers are not exposed to the risk of personal injury caused by damaging levels of noise. The performers have had to rehearse in larger halls, be spaced differently on the concert hall stages and BBC personnel have had to continually measure levels of noise and exposure over the course of a week so that they do not exceed recommended levels.

On the HSE website the powers that be generously say that:

"The tighter noise exposure action values will not outlaw particular pieces from orchestras' repertoires but the loudest pieces may be played less often. The aim is to protect musicians' hearing so that they can continue in their profession and go on providing pleasure to the public. The Royal Opera House for example will still do the Ring Cycle, but schedule the performances to allow the musicians recovery time in what is anyway a physically demanding work. The draft practical guide offers other suggestions in relation to suitable venues, orchestra layouts and elevating the brass so that they can be heard without having to play through five rows of fellow musicians."

A 2006 study on hearing production and hearing symptoms in Danish orchestras revealed that 27% of musicians suffered hearing loss, 24% suffered from tinnitus, 25% from hyperacusis (increased sensitivity to sound), 12% from distortion and 5% from diplacusis (abnormal perception of sound).

So, I would say to Mr Terfel, yes, I might not leave one of his concerts with the infernal drone of tinnitus in my ears, but if he sat in front of the brass section for two years, whilst they performed a continual cycle of Mahler, it might just make his ears bleed.

Can I claim?