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Question?
I am about to be 75 years old. Started going to classical concerts when I was 13 years old. My father taught me not to applaud between movements of a classical work because it interrupted the flow of the music and showed a lack of sophistication. In the last 10 years both in Sarasota and San antonio this applauding has become common. Especially at the end of the first movement. Is this now the new norm? I remember once as some people at a Chicago Symphony concert conducted by Solti some members applauded at the conclusion of a first movement.
Solti turned and faced the audience, gave them a dirty look and waved his finger indicating no no no
Alan
Follow Ups:
...when the only nonmusical sounds you heard during the music in a concert hall were turned program pages, coughing, the occasional dropped program or sneeze, and (at the opera) snoring by people who went so their picture would be in the society pages (as an usher, I was asked to gently awaken the snorers).
Two weeks ago, I attended a concert at Severance Hall by the Cleveland Institute of Music orchestra (great concert!). Somebody in the balcony had a cellphone that rang like an old dial phone. LOUDLY, three or four rings. This happened three times during the quiet parts of Scheherezade.
I see this as a circular decay- the classical radio stations are playing the 'hits' only - be they a movement or part of a movement- which reinforces the audience perception that it is OK to clap once the 'work' is done....
Happy Listening
If silence between movements is desired then the host or conductor should ask the audience for it in advance.Hired bouncers in tuxedos can take care the rest.
Edits: 10/03/16
of Poulenc's "Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra" performed on the grounds of Schonbrunn Palace as seen on today's PBS broadcast of the Vienna Philharmonic's Summer 2016 concert. Semyon Bychkov didn't turn around, much less glare or cast dirty looks at anyone. And the Labeque sisters didn't seem to mind.
Jim
http://jimtranr.com
Edits: 10/02/16
I read somewhere long ago (my aged brain cannot remember where) that the audience went so wild after the first movement of a premier performance that the orchestra re-played the entire movement again. I'm thinking it was Brahms and hoping someone can verify.
"Life without music is a mistake" (Nietzsche)
My favorite is the "bravo" guy. He who must shout out before anyone else can and before any applause can start. Especially annoying on live recordings.
The correct timing must take years to perfect.
Without fact-checking myself, I believe it was Mahler who, from his lofty position as arbiter of everything musical, decreed that audiences shall no longer applaud between movements.
I used to scoff and look down my nose when people did it. Then I realized that it was the sound of new audience members, which we desperately need. So now, I kind of applaud THEM. :-)
-Bob
Another aspect of making the classical repertoire and performances even MORE distant from
the masses. The snoottiness dropped on those who wish to clap (either in delight or awe)
at something as emotionally stirring as a musical performance is just another way for the
sophisticates (sniff) to keep themselves feeling that way.
It's human nature to respond to delight by clapping, why should it be frowned upon?
Now, whooping, that we can do without pretty much anytime, anywhere.
"Once this was all Black Plasma and Imagination" -Michael McClure
I was reading something (novel?) written during the 1920s recently ( sorry, I cannot remember wnat is was, early Doris Lessing probably) and of its time. In it one character is questioning another about his concert going " Do you follow the new fashion for not clapping between movements?".Two points then. Not clapping between movements was still a novelty in the 1920s. Moreover it was considered as a fashion.
It seems clear to me that the normal "artistic" justification for not clapping is entirely wrong for much of the repertoire where the composer has clearly anticipated and invited an audience response at the end of movements or even during them (the latter , for example, at the end of cadenzas in many concertos).
As clothing fashions change so do musical ones. I have noted an increase in clapping between movements in London over the past few years. But what seems to be emerging is a distinction between works inviting some degree of inter movement applause and those where it would obviously be inappropriate ( for example works with a liturgical basis).
There also seems to be emerging some kind of distinction between the level of applause offered between movements and that reserved for the conclusion.
Who knows what will happen in due course? The classical world must hope to continue its existence with new and, therefore, younger audiences. Social norms and education mean that most of these younger people may not come from a background familiar with either the music or expected behaviour. To anyone from a rock or jazz heritage applauding when it seems appropriate is the norm.
So, like everything else in the universe, the only thing that I expect to occur is change. The concert going behaviour established during the first half of the 20th century will appear as quaint as that of other eras appears odd to us now.
Edits: 10/02/16
...because it was the norm before the twentieth century. What we have substituted is coughing between movements. When a composer ends a movement with a climax that clearly is meant to draw applause, the usual response is to discharge the desire to clap by coughing. In Beethoven's time, it was common to play single movements from symphonies. Why not now? Jazz performances continue to encourage audience participation even though clapping after every solo has become so routinized that it's lost a lot of its spontaneity.
Edits: 10/02/16
"What we have substituted is coughing between movements."
Exactly - that coughing drives me crazy, and I'd rather there were applause to cover it.
One description of an early performance of Haydn's The Creation (Die Schopfung) mentions that the audience applauded when Haydn depicted the sun coming out, and that's in the middle of a movement! ;-)
And now, a special paragraph for Travis:24/96, DSD128, and DXD - nyah, nyah, nyah! ;-)
n
...the Phoenix Symphony orchestra's concerts are attended by a fair, sometimes substantial, number of young people. Our music director Tito Munez has yet to scowl or wave or anything in response to between-movements applause, he just ignores it.
The first two concerts this season had NO between-movement applause and were well attended, too.
Lucky us.
So no, I don't think it's the new norm.
----------
Tin-eared audiofool, large-scale-Classical music lover, and damned-amateur fotografer.
William Bruce Cameron: "...not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted."
For example, Zubin Mehta specialized in a fearsome glare over the shoulder while he launched without pause into the next movement.
To me, vastly more annoying than applause between movements is the whispering, audibly paging through the program, and worst of all, playing with plastic candy wrappers by the audience members around me.
This whole subject so irritates me I need to abandon this thread before my blood pressure begins to rise.
.
"If people don't want to come, nothing will stop them" - Sol Hurok
Musicians aren't even needed anymore, much less Audiences.
There.
Point taken, Travis; my post was only meant to be a head's up for those interested.
Sarasota is in Florida.
San Antonio is in Texas.
Just aayin'...
However here in the more sophisticated San Francisco Bay Area, at least on the occasion of the discounted San Francisco Symphony 'Community Concert', MTT said not a word as the audience applauded between movements.
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