Applause after concerto first movements
I found this at the Naxos site:
"When to Applaud
A common concern of listeners at classical concerts, and one of the chief obstacles to enjoying the music, is the dreaded Fear of Clapping in the Wrong Place. It's no wonder the audience is afraid: classical musicians don't usually make clear what they expect of the audience.
In other kinds of music, the audience claps whenever there's an ending -- if the music stops, people applaud. But in classical music, one piece may have several endings within it, and you are supposed to wait to the very end of the very last ending before you clap.
This can be tough. Sometimes you can't tell if the piece is over. Sometimes you get so carried away by the music that you really want to clap. Sometimes you're so enthusiastic after a section ends that you've just got to clap for the musicians.
Don't do it.
I know it seems cruel to squelch that urge to applaud, but please wait for the very end of the whole piece.
Believe me, musicians hate to tell people not to clap. We love applause. If somebody gets carried away and claps in the "wrong" place, most musicians don't mind. We're happy to accept approval in any form.
But here is why we like the audience to wait until the very end of a piece: we want everyone to hear the complete piece as a total experience. Long pieces may involve several mood changes, and it's lovely not to disrupt these with applause.
How do you tell when a piece of music is really over? Quite often a classical piece has several sections, each with its own ending, and it can be hard to tell which ending is the final ending, the one you're supposed to clap for. How do you know when it's really the end of the whole thing?
When in doubt, simply wait until lots of other people are clapping.
By the way, this tradition of waiting to applaud until the very end of a piece is relatively new. In other times and places, audiences clapped throughout the music. Mozart, for instance, was proud to report in a letter to his father that there had been wild applause during his latest symphony. So if you feel an urge to clap before the very end of a piece, you're in tune with an authentic historical tradition.
One more thing about clapping: snobs might try to make you feel like this is a really big deal. Snobs are only too ready to sneer at people whose enthusiasm results in mistimed applause. (I know of one music critic who has heaped shame on an entire county because he thinks they applaud too much.) Such snobbery should be pitied but ignored. As a performer, I'd much rather play for overzealous applauders than for snobs."
I think this recent convention ought to be re-thought when it comes to many concerto first movements. It seems the bravura endings of many first movements were meant to evoke outward expressions by the audience.
Classical music has a reputation with many people unfamiliar with it as stiff, repressed, and overly proper. This convention feeds the stereotype and is damaging to efforts to engage new audiences. I mean, it's so unnatural.
(I'm not talking about in general that there should be -- also unnatural -- obligatory applause. Though audience coughing, rustling and musician tuning also breaks the flow of the piece detrimental to the experience. But think of the Tchaikovsky first movement brilliantly played...)
Replies (25)
"But think of the Tchaikovsky first movement brilliantly played..." . . . and that is just what produced a big ovation for Mikhail Simonyon when I heard him with the Kirov Orchestra under Gergiev last month. I agree with Peter - it would be unnatural to suppress one's admiration for both performer and music when both are trying to move you precisely to the emotional state in which you want to applaud at a slam bang conclusion to an opening movement. On the other hand, applause which interrupts the flow the the music is just as unwelcome as conversation - your applause may express your emotion, but it also prevents others from hearing the music, unlike movement-end applause. Norms differ by genre - after a brilliant jazz solo applause is expected, and adds to the excitement of the performance.
Audiences do often seem to have trouble deciding what to do. For example, at last month's Kirov concert, having applauded vigorously after the first movement of the Tchaikovsky concerto, the audience also applauded (after intermission) after the first movement of Shostakovich #10. This does interrupt a mood and transition between movements, the conductor Gergiev seemed impatient, and responded by doing the remaining movement transitions as close to "attacca" as he could get away with. That successfully deflected between-movement applause. Though I sure wanted to after a brilliant peformance of the 2nd movement (don't worry, I wasn't about to!).
My mother once told me of attending a memorable performance of the Brahms first piano concerto at the Casals festival in Puerto Rico, with Rudolf Serkin and Pablo Casals conducting. At the end of the first movement (which is a concerto in itself) the audience broke out into cheers, there was a standing ovation, and Serkin jumped up and hugged Casals. It took a bit for things to settle down so they could continue. How can that be bad?
Its funny you bring this up...... The applause thing with classical musicians is one reason I get so annoyed with classical music (as a whole). Classical musicians have (in general) made a seperation between the audience and the performers. This is why many people get bored listening to it, including myself. One goes to a performance, watches someone who has been classified as "better than yourself", and is meant to be in awe after the concert. This is a novelty idea and will work for a novelty act, but as far as music goes people want familliarity. If you, as a performer, cannot handle the emotional seperation clapping creates between moods...... then either stop playing, or tell people not to clap before hand. Classical music NEEDS to have a serious change in attitude, or it will soon become a study rather than a degree of music. Its already begun.
Again this is just my opinion based on the places I have been (which has been rather substantial in the US) But its hard to say classical music is not dying when one TRULY looks at the numbers.
Greetings,
that`s odd. I had the opposite experience in the music profession. I met dedicated and hradworking people who wanted to do their utmost to play music well under the most trying condirtions for a very low salary.
Working as a semi professional now I experience only incredible love and respect for the people who come to the recitals I do or the chamber music cocnerts where we play Beethoven, Mozart and other elitist stuff.
Must be coz I`m a pervert,
Cheers,
Buri
I met dedicated and hradworking people who wanted to do their utmost to play music well under the most trying condirtions for a very low salary.
this is the precise reason classical music needs a general attitude change, because the musicians ARE hard working and in love with the music. I didnt say anything about a musicians attitude towards the music, its simply that the music has been lost in tradition for the last 50-75 years, which is (believed my many) to be the fault of the conservatories. I am not getting down on the big concervatories, because I am going to one of them next year, but I am getting encouraging to musicians to be more open with the music. Again this is not the case in EVERY musician. I had a conversation with Edgar Meyer (after a performance where the audience clapped after every movt) and I asked him what he thought of it. He said "should I think anything of it? Let them clap when they feel ready to clap." paraphrased of course.
Greetings,
musicians attitude towards the music ^includes- how to communicate it to the audience. Otehr wise you are not a musician.
>its simply that the music has been lost in tradition for the last 50-75 years,
No its not that simple. Firts you have to prove that music is lost? Thats not a very cocnrete position. Then you have to define tradition. And even if you do that how do you get away from the fact that there is a necessity for tradion in order for things to be tranmitted from generation to generation to eveolve?
And why pick on the last fifty to seventy five years*? Mahler railed against the stangantion of what he belived was tradtion in orchestra. And as far as I am aware there has been a great deal of innovation and experimentaion over the last fifty years. I was lucky enough to play the Beethoven symphonies under Norrington in his early days and he blew pthe player sminds. Not by doing anything radical like wearing pink body stocking and turning the violin upside down but adopting the tempos and articluation etc that he belived Beethoven actually wanted. The pieces had never sounded so odd or inspiring to me. Yet what could be more traditional than going back to the cocnrete ness of the scores and marking? Just what is it you really want to happen?
And is it really musicians rejecting openess and innovation or is it the public being manipulted by market forces out for the big bucks? Is Vanessa Mae really innovatory stuuff bringing music closer to a wider public? Not really. Thats grabage disuised in tight trousers.
To my mind you are setting up criticisms of the people and the music instea dof just acceptng that music is what it is. Some people like it. Some people dont. It has certain values attached to it that make it what it is. Romeve those values for some nebuluous claim that it could be commmunicated bette ror whatever and it becomes sub standard or at very elast morphes into soemthing different.
Cheers,
Buri
It has certain values attached to it that make it what it is. Romeve those values for some nebuluous claim that it could be commmunicated bette ror whatever and it becomes sub standard or at very elast morphes into soemthing different.
Its funny because thats EXACTLY the thing I believe that has happened to classical music in this century.
Greetings,
you seriously belive classical music has evolved into something else and the standard has dropped?
Cheers,
Buri
I'm not a professional violinist, but I think that people applauding in the "wrong" place is great. Music performed live is a transactional experience between the performers and the audience. It's the unexpected (positive and negative) that makes for an unforgettable experience for everyone. What I think IS annoying and inappropriate, however, is a cellphone going off in the middle of a performance.
On one of the other threads I recalled a recital many years ago I saw once by David Soyer, the cellist, and his accompanist. It was a college audience. He played a Prokofiev sonata, which (predictably) no one in the audience (including me) was familiar with. The audience not only failed to applaud during the piece (which was very, very well performed), but after it ended, since no one had figured out that it was over. Soyer finally said (in perfect New York-ese), "Dat's the end uh da piece." Then the audience applauded.
I never mind people applauding after first movements. It's not distracting for me as a performer if it is a natural break in the music. I support the audience's self-expression, and, if anything, can feed off of the applause as an indication that my performance is well-received.
I am reminded of a story I heard about a concert in which the audience applauded after the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd movements of a symphony and was shushed annoyedly by the conductor. Then, after the 4th movement, the audience didn't applaud at all, perhaps because they were so confused or perhaps out of spite!
Regarding changing certain values in classical and it morphs into something else, I think maybe it's as much a psychological phenomenon as a musical one. If classical became popular ...well it would then be popular music, and a different "classical" might appear, like a moving target.
First movements that end with a big 'ha-za' and a clear demarcation, such as Tchaikovsky or Brahms, deliver a lot of energy to the audience, and make it only natural for them to want to release some of that absorbed energy by applauding. If they do, we should graciously acknowledge it, without milking it. (Needless to say, it would be a pity if that would happen in the Mendelssohn.)
It's my belief that Tchaikovsky knew EXACTLY what he was doing when he wrote the end of the 1st movement of the violin concerto and the first piano concerto, not to mention the Scherzo of the 6th Symphony. Same for lots of other composers & pieces.
Hi,
Funny how times have changed. In the 19th century, a composer expected applaud between movements of a new work, or it meant that it was ill-received. So long was the applause after the Scherzo of Brahms' 4th Symphony at its premiere, that the movement was happily repeated on the spot. I guess that times and traditions change...
Cheers!
If you have ever heard Tchaikovsky 6th symphony, you might think differently about clapping between movements. The 3rd movement is the one with the whizzbang ending, and the 4th (the last) ends very quietly.
It feels so very wrong to not clap after the 3rd movement, just like it would feel to not clap at all for the Tchaikovsky 5th symphony.
If I remember correctly, it wasn't unusual in Beethoven's time for things like symphonies to be performed piecemeal. In other words they would perform one movement then there'd be another act or work before they would perform the second movement and so on.
Obviously in those circumstances I would imagine it would be expected that the audience would applaud at the end of a movement.
Just something to ponder.
Neil
Stephen: now that you mention it, it almost sounds wrong not to clap after that gigantic dominant cadence in the last mvt. of Tchaik 5. (You all know the place I mean) Having said that "Tchaikovsky knew EXACTLY what he was doing" at other moments, I guess he must have known what he was doing here, too: "Aha, I will write a fake ending, so the audience members who don't already know my piece will be tricked into applauding before it's over! BWA-hahaha!"
Neil: I have read this about a number of pieces (Beethoven #7 comes to mind, I think) where not only was it performed / premiered a movement at a time, but sometimes a movement was applauded so much that they played it AGAIN before going on! You can bet Beethoven / Mozart / whoever was pretty happy with that audience response...
"The audience not only failed to applaud during the piece (which was very, very well performed), but after it ended, since no one had figured out that it was over. Soyer finally said (in perfect New York-ese), "Dat's the end uh da piece." Then the audience applauded."
Sandy - great story.
Yes, I have heard an entire packed concert hall of 2000 people clapping after the 3rd movement of the Tchaik 6! It is very hard not to!
Not only the Tchaikovsky 6th, but the Brahms 4th (3rd movement), the first movement of Beethoven's 5th (just listen to the PDQ Bach "analysis" a'la sports broadcasting of that movement), the 3rd movement of the Shostakovich 5th, and so on.
who needs applause when we know perfectly well that we can always crinkle our cellophane candy wrappers?
Yes, I've always had a dream to write the most original concerto ever written, and this website has finally inspired me to do just that:
The Sandy Marcus Concerto for crinkled cellophane, cellular phone, a cougher with the flu, orchestra, and chorus of people who applaud rather than sing.
Whaddaya think?
And by the way, has anyone ever noticed this? The name of the famous French composer, Jacques Ibert, sounds perilously similar to something that sounds like a cartoon character - Jockey Bear.
I have never forgotten a line in a record review in High Fidelity sometime in the 1960s or 70s of (I am pretty sure) a live Richter recording, containing this: ". . . recorded in Bucharest during a flu epidemic . . . "
(Sorry, forgot piece and all details, might have been on old Monitor label)
Sander-- Good! But it's not original! Hence this thread :-) In general, I'm delighted anytime the extraneous cough drops and cell phone noises are avoided, and applause is after any movement or all of them. We should definitely not be snotty about it all. I often give big inarticulate hollers along with applause when I'm particularly grateful for a performance, and classically-bred though I be, I actually have a hard time sometimes NOT giving a quick brief jazz-style approval in the moment (restrained *oops* 98% of the time...) I love hearing all that when I'm the one up there in the tux. But not cell phones-- that's unholy.
I recall that many, many years ago at an outdoor concert in Chicago, a very well known violinist (who shall go unnamed) who was then quite obese walked out onstage, and someone in the audience said (loud enough for many to hear), "Which chin is he going to put it under?"
(Is that worse than a cellphone?)
This discussion has been archived and is no longer accepting responses.
Violinist.com is made possible by...
Dimitri Musafia, Master Maker of Violin and Viola Cases
Johnson String Instrument/Carriage House Violins
Subscribe
Laurie's Books
Discover the best of Violinist.com in these collections of editor Laurie Niles' exclusive interviews.
Violinist.com Interviews Volume 1, with introduction by Hilary Hahn
Violinist.com Interviews Volume 2, with introduction by Rachel Barton Pine
April 16, 2006 at 10:11 PM · hey, there should be applause after the first two pages for anyone who plays the tchaikovsky really well...