When was the last time you hurled your program at the stage? Or jeered an orchestra? Or furiously stormed out of a concert after haranguing the conductor?

Chances are, you probably haven’t and can’t imagine doing so. But the history of classical music is regularly punctuated with stories of those who have. People who have booed musicians off the stage, have orchestrated deafening choruses of catcalls, or have taken to each other with opera canes and walking sticks.

For example, when the Ballets Russes premiered Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring in Paris in 1913, police had to be called in to break up the riot between opposing factions. Sixty years later, a Steve Reich concert in New York City’s Carnegie Hall ended in uproar with audience members trading blows. “[They] made at least three serious attempts to halt the piece,” recalled conductor Michael Tilson Thomas in an interview. “We kept going, even though people were having fist-fights …”

“The End of a Bad Show”. Puck Magazine, 1883. Image WikiCommons

“I remember as a music student, I used to live in fear of that happening to me someday,” says English violinist Jack Liebeck. “I have...