The Brandenburg Concerto No. 1 in F major rang out over the streetlights of University Avenue, across the trees and rooftops of the Midway and, as some reports have it, possibly as far as Langford Park. The recorded symphony was followed closely behind by a rousing selection from the first act of the 19th-century French opera “Lakmé,” which chronicles the forbidden love between a British colonial officer and a winsome Hindu girl in India.

Then came another classical score, and another and another, with symphonies and operas continuing deep into the night and well past daybreak.

From roughly 10 p.m. Tuesday to 7 a.m. Wednesday, St. Paul’s Midway neighborhood was feted by nine hours of uninterrupted classical and operatic music, at volumes many residents found difficult to ignore. The next night, it happened again. Some neighbors, desperate for a good night’s sleep, drove down University Avenue, looking for the noise scofflaw.

Other residents called St. Paul police, who traced the clandestine concertos to their source — mounted speakers on an anti-loitering device in the parking lot of the Midway Marketplace, by a long-vacant Herberger’s clothing store and the Cub Foods supermarket between Pascal Street and Hamline Avenue.

There was just one problem — no off switch.

“Each time somebody called, the officer would respond,” Sgt. Mike Ernster, a St. Paul police spokesman, said Friday. “And it was the same each time — ‘We’ve located it, but there’s no immediate way to contact (the property manager) to say hey, turn it down or turn it off.’”

That was of slim consolation to Charles Avenue resident Andrew Korsberg, a father of two young children. “It is astonishingly disrespectful to our neighborhood and needs to stop immediately,” he said Thursday.

City inspectors on the case

The Midway Marketplace lot draws its share of panhandlers and other destitute denizens, some of whom tend to spend the night, and the overnight music was part of an apparent effort to clear them out while deterring crime and property damage. It was perhaps ironic, then, that the deterrent may have violated a few city ordinances that limit amplified sound, especially late at night.

Residents’ complaints also made their way to the St. Paul Department of Safety and Inspections, which has reviewed concerns from residential neighbors about high-volume music and announcements emanating from the strip mall parking lot since at least mid-winter. A DSI spokesman on Friday said the earliest complaint he could find on file came Feb. 14.

“An inspector went out that same day with a measuring device and at the time they were operating within the 70-decibel limit with their speakers,” said Casey Rodriguez, a spokesman for DSI on Friday. “As far as I know, this (test) was during the day.”

Another complaint came in early March, prompting city inspectors to reach out to Midway Marketplace property managers with Kraus-Anderson Realty, which operates three mounted speakers in the parking lot. Rodriguez said additional mounted devices in the lot are operated by the marketplace’s individual businesses.

All of the speakers, he said, are provided by the same contractor, LiveView Technologies of Utah.

Following this week’s back-to-back overnight symphonies, the Department of Safety and Inspections contacted the city’s licensing department, which again reached out to Kraus-Anderson Realty on Thursday, and company officials reassured them residents finally would get a good night’s rest. “They said they’re taking it down between 8 p.m. and 8 a.m. for the foreseeable future,” Rodriguez said.

Kraus-Anderson could not be reached for comment Friday. Nevertheless, in the Midway overnight Thursday and into Friday morning, not a hint of Handel or a modicum of Mozart was heard.

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