Following on from applause

[Petrushka]

He points out that the most polite way for such as he [him?] to be polite to those who irritate him is to stop going to live concerts … QEF - not?

I sort of come to this conclusion at the end of every Prom season having had most of the concerts I've attended ruined by some buffoonery or other. Attending concerts isn't just parking your posterior on the seat and listening; there are all the attendant costs, financial and otherwise that have to be considered. Booking the concerts, fixing holidays at work, paying for the seat, travel, hotel and meals. I'd hazard a guess that I spent well in excess of £1000 at this year's Proms and when I have concert after concert ruined by coughers and other avoidable distractions I have to ask if it's worth it.

It never used to be like this.

[french frank]

Going to concerts isn't "essentially a solitary experience" at all, it never has been.

That's not what the quote said. It said, paraphrasing, that for 'practical reasons' going to a concert (i.e. live classical music) has to be experienced with many other people. But appreciating the music is a solitary experience.

I thought the idea of a 'Facebook generation' was interesting. More and more you find people living in their own little social bubble, permanently 'surrounded' by their friends who are at the end of a phone, a text, an email - wherever they are. Thus you sit in a bus full of mainly silent people listening to one person shouting down their phone, having a private conversation which no one else wants to listen to, blissfully unaware of black looks or the general unease of people whose space is being invaded. People interact all the time with their friends who aren't present, and ignore everyone who is present.

[MrGongGong]

That's not what the quote said. It said, paraphrasing, that for 'practical reasons' going to a concert (i.e. live classical music) has to be experienced with many other people. But appreciating the music is a solitary experience.
.

That seems to me to be a bit like something the MftBO would say. (Ministry for the bleeding obvious) you mean I can't hear music though someone else's ears?

I thought that the idea of a 'Facebook generation' was a bit superficial and simplistic and a bit comical given that I read this ON Facebook......oh but i'm sure it only means the way that "other folks" i.e "young people" use Facebook not those on the Pretentious Classical Music Elitists group (which i'm sure you know about )

[Beef Oven!]

I sort of come to this conclusion at the end of every Prom season having had most of the concerts I've attended ruined by some buffoonery or other. Attending concerts isn't just parking your posterior on the seat and listening; there are all the attendant costs, financial and otherwise that have to be considered. Booking the concerts, fixing holidays at work, paying for the seat, travel, hotel and meals. I'd hazard a guess that I spent well in excess of £1000 at this year's Proms and when I have concert after concert ruined by coughers and other avoidable distractions I have to ask if it's worth it.

It never used to be like this.

That's quite sad Petrushka.

I agree about the coughing, I've never experienced so much coughing at concerts as I did at this season's Proms. On several occasions more than one member of the audience repeatedly coughed. It really interfered with listening to music, as far as I'm concerned. Even though I'm a bit short on manners and emotional intelligence, I would have left the hall and got my coughing under control - what's with these people?

I'm for inter-movement applause in some, but definitely not all performances. It felt so right at the end of Jupiter, but no way during DSCH 8, for example. As I've said before, I believe it's perfectly possible to develop the instinct to know when, and when not to applaud.

It would also help if the conductor or house announcer gave a steer. A few years ago, Yannick Nézet-Séguin asked us to refrain from applause until the very end of a Bruckner concert he was performing at the RFH: Christus Factus Est - Symphony 9 - Te Deum. Worked perfectly.

When we're asked over the tannoy "if you have a watch with an alarm....... etc" it would be just as easy to say "tonight's performers have asked for any applause to be saved for the end of the piece". Or something like that.

And what can we do about unfortunate things like the kid breaking in on the end of Neptune? Nothing I suppose, it's the price we might have to pay for inclusion. I was at a gig at the Barbican a few years ago (I cannot remember what the music was, or who the performers were) when a teenager, who I assume had some aspect of autism, had an episode in the middle of the opening piece. The conductor looked 'round with an extremely disapproving scowl (he couldn't have known the nature of the disruption). The teenagers companions/parents quickly got him out of the hall. It was quite a big disturbance and must've ruined that part of the concert for many. Again, the price that might have to be paid in order to widen inclusion.

[french frank]

I thought that the idea of a 'Facebook generation' was a bit superficial and simplistic and a bit comical given that I read this ON Facebook

I didn't read it on Facebook.

Gongers, the REALLY simple thing is that we all have to accept that we think and experience things differently and have to try and rub along together as best we can, trying not to upset each other too much.

The real problem is with people who KNOW that others think and feel differently from them, but who assume that those people are not like most people, and are therefore wrong/can be ignored. That is the position from which you argue. In my opinion.

[Serial_Apologist]

There's always been coughing, including in quiet intimate musical passages, as my reel-to-reels from 1960s broadcasts testify. One might have thought the problem would have diminished with the diminution of smoking among the general population, so why it appears to be increasing is a puzzle. My guess would be that when added to the other problems mentioned or considered issues, coughing has acquired a greater nuisance factor value than it once had.

[MrGongGong]

The real problem is with people who KNOW that others think and feel differently from them, but who assume that those people are not like most people, and are therefore wrong/can be ignored. That is the position from which you argue. In my opinion.

I don't think I am "arguing" from that position at all and I wouldn't suggest we ignore people BUT there are some who do like to carry around their complaints with them.
I was commenting that the stuff from mrP was (IMV) nonsense and read to me a bit like what we often read from those who think there is a conspiracy to remove "classical music" from broadcasting and education.

[Petrushka]

There's always been coughing, including in quiet intimate musical passages, as my reel-to-reels from 1960s broadcasts testify. One might have thought the problem would have diminished with the diminution of smoking among the general population, so why it appears to be increasing is a puzzle. My guess would be that when added to the other problems mentioned or considered issues, coughing has acquired a greater nuisance factor value than it once had.

For some really bad coughing go to the Leningrad PO/Mravinsky Shostakovich 8 in the RFH on the BBC Legends label but even that is beaten by the same artists first performance recording of the Shostakovich 11 on the Russian Disc label. I played both once and vowed not to bother again. Coughers ruining two historic concerts!

[french frank]

I don't think I am "arguing" from that position at all and I wouldn't suggest we ignore people BUT there are some who do like to carry around their complaints with them.

I was commenting that the stuff from mrP was (IMV) nonsense and read to me a bit like what we often read from those who think there is a conspiracy to remove "classical music" from broadcasting and education.

But in my view it was not nonsense, so what do we do about that? What you're still doing is creating a 'them v us' situation (and 'they' are apparently the unreasonable ones), rather than accepting that there is a problem. People 'who like to carry around their complaints with them'? Those conspiracy theorists (who?) dreaming up all sorts of things not actually mentioned in this article at all?

[MrGongGong]

But in my view it was not nonsense, so what do we do about that? What you're still doing is creating a 'them v us' situation (and 'they' are apparently the unreasonable ones), rather than accepting that there is a problem. People 'who like to carry around their complaints with them'? Those conspiracy theorists (who?) dreaming up all sorts of things not actually mentioned in this article at all?

This

"It is also worth noting that she is part of the team under whose management the public areas of the Southbank Centre have degenerated into a cross between a Burger King and a car boot sale."

Is what I mean by nonsense.
In the wonderful past that mrPliable loved so much the RFH was only unlocked to the public to let folks in for concerts.

and

"dreaming up all sorts of things not actually mentioned in this article at all?"

Like this for example?

"So I am told by the Southbank Centre's head of music Gillian Moore that if the person in the seat next to me breaks her eminently sensible suggested concert etiquette by using a mobile phone to tell friends they are in a concert, I should simply "be nice to them". "

She didn't say this at all which is why I said it was nonsense.

[french frank]

I think this has become an 'Ideas & Theory' discussion Picking out some comments which you (and maybe I - if I were to be familiar with the Southbank Centre) think are nonsense/hyperbolic doesn't invalidate the whole piece.

I see the problem as being the differences between human beings, created by a number of factors. You appear [NB 'appear'] to think that the problem is a particular group of 'other people' with whom you are not in sympathy.

[MrGongGong]

I think this has become an 'Ideas & Theory' discussion Picking out some comments which you (and maybe I - if I were to be familiar with the Southbank Centre) think are nonsense/hyperbolic doesn't invalidate the whole piece.

I see the problem as being the differences between human beings, created by a number of factors. You appear [NB 'appear'] to think that the problem is a particular group of 'other people' with whom you are not in sympathy.

The factual inaccuracies DO invalidate the "whole piece" IMV
My second quote being a classic example of a "Straw Man" (I think? you are the linguist )

and actually I agree with you about the differences between human beings (which is partly what Gillian was talking about)

[Master Jacques]

Forgive me, as a latecomer to this thread, reposting a link to a most interesting article by Alex Ross:

http://www.therestisnoise.com/2005/0...se_a_rest.html

We're all slaves of our own upbringing, traditions and habits: I've been as militant towards mobile phone tweeters as anyone (their bright screen lights and screen scrolling make me see red immediately); but I believe we have to accept that what's considered "normal" behaviour at concerts, and in the theatre generally, has never been set in stone, and never will be.

Social mores are subject to constant change, whether we like it or not, and the fact that these events are communal gatherings ought to be part of their beauty: when we start demanding the same sublime stillness with which we can indulge ourselves in our own homes, surely we need to question where we are coming from?

When it comes to applause between movements, it's interesting that Mr Ross places most of the blame (or awards most of the plaudits, depending on how you see it!) for the "tradition" of silence, to Leopold Stokowski's very theatrical approach to the "sacred temple" of the symphony - Mozart or Brahms would have been appalled if their audiences had not applauded between movements, and encores of individual movements were frequent. These things are a matter of time and place. There is no right and wrong, and something to be said on all sides.

I also think that there is a certain, rose-tinted aspect to the perceived, exponential growth of coughing. Last night, I played a 1960's Royal Festival Hall CD of Adrian Boult conducting Richard Lewis in what would have been a marvellous performance of Vaughan Williams's On Wenlock Edge - had not the continual coughing rendered it all but inaudible. Another poster has made reference to Russian concert recordings of the time, but the coughers were not confined to Moscow, for sure!

We cannot hold back the tide. What was considered polite behaviour in the 1960's is now considered unduly reverential, and that's a fact. Yet we're still guilty of double standards - for me, the worst distractions at the Proms are those great camera booms which swing out - and if you're in the side stalls - OVER the audience and are continually on the move. I don't suppose audiences in Berlin or Vienna would tolerate this sort of thing for a minute. But we British seem to accept ANY inconvenience, if the Great God Television is involved in the scene - I haven't heard anyone on this thread complaining about this boomery, yet it seems to me far more offensive than applause between movements, coughing - or even tweeting!

Enough. We need to get these things into perspective. Concert going is a communal experience, and those booms (I suppose it would be argued) are to help thousands of other people think they are part of the experience, too. It's perhaps a small price to pay for such (generally) marvellous music-making.

[underthecountertenor]

I find rhythmic movement of any kind other than by the performers intensely annoying. At the Schmidt 2 last week (otherwise a very involving piece, IMHO) I was reduced to holding up my hand to screen out the hand-waving of the chap next to me. Some time ago a similar incident drove me to purchase some black felt to make blinkers I could thread onto my glasses, but I never made them up. I really must before next season.

Perhaps David-G would be prepared to lend you the contraption he wore at the ROH Guillaume Tell, to distracting if hilarious effect. He may even have patented it by now, following my suggestion, as the Regiemask (available in all opera house shops and larger branches of Robert Dyas).

[french frank]

Concert going is a communal experience

Discuss.