gsms1In Italy, the telefonino reigns supreme. It doesn’t matter how important the meeting, nor how exclusive; some, if not all, of the participants will have their mobile phones switched on, they will receive calls (and they will answer them) and their ring tones will be loud. In Ligetti’s ‘anti-opera’, Le Grand Macabre (see 29 March post), the conductor used car horns. As I sat in the Palazzo San Giacomo, listening to the conference participants frequently interspersed with ring tones, it suddenly occurred to me that if Ligeti were still alive he would write mobile phone ring tones into his music.