Berliner Philharmoniker Live concert

[marvin]

Watched the Barenboim concert the other night featuring Tchaikovsky 6th. At the end of the penultimate movement, the audience broke into a finale-like applause together with 'bravos' . I was shocked by this and wondered whether it was a local custom?
The auto cameras didn't pan in to Barenboim at this stage but he stood bolt upright and continued facing the orchestra until the noise stopped. He then played the last movement.
Any comments on this breach of etiquette?

[Bryn]

Watched the Barenboim concert the other night featuring Tchaikovsky 6th. At the end of the penultimate movement, the audience broke into a finale-like applause together with 'bravos' . I was shocked by this and wondered whether it was a local custom?
The auto cameras didn't pan in to Barenboim at this stage but he stood bolt upright and continued facing the orchestra until the noise stopped. He then played the last movement.
Any comments on this breach of etiquette?

It's a worldwide and quite frequent phenomenon. I'm sure Barenboim was well prepared for it. A performance without approbation at that point may even be the exception, rather than the rule.

[Petrushka]

When this subject has cropped up before on here I've said that the third movement of the Pathetique positively demands applause even to the extent that it seems to be written in the score. The Pathetique effectively has two finales. I'm entirely comfortable with applause at this point and find at least one comment above to be somewhat less acceptable than any amount of inter-movement applause

[richardfinegold]

I find the argument that Tchaik/6 has "2 endings" to be specious. I also don't think the argument would apply to Brahms/4, another Symphony that ends tragically but that has a march for a third movement (that will induce audience applause) followed by a tragic fourth movement.
Reactions to music are subjective, and your viewpoint may be just as valid as mine. However, in both works, my viewpoint is that both Composers are setting the table for a concluding tragic denoument with their marche movements. They both seem to be saying that yes, in life one might achieve great things, recognition of peers and societal acclaim, but ultimately such achievements are meaningless or at least overriden by implacable fate. Both works were composed towards the end of their respective Composers lifetimes and not by some optimistic youths brimming with immortality. Whether it was premonitions of their own mortality, or overwhelming personal tragedy, both works imply that life may have it's share of pleasures but in the end it's the bad stuff that predominates, and both works tell us that their creators were not happy about it.
Clapping at the conclusion of the marche(s) therefore seems disrespectful. One needs to hear the complete Artistic Vision before one renders a judgement.
It would be no more appropriate than clapping atfter the polka movement of Smetena's Quartet From My Life, another work that ends tragically, or after the andante of Mahler/6, (in whatever order it is played), which offers a respite from the onslaught of tragedy.
If we think about it, very few works of major Composers end tragically. Where they exist, it is as if we are seeing the real face of the Composer, without a mask. Premature applause after a preliminary marche is like telling the Composer to put the mask back on, because without it, his vision is to ugly for us to contemplate

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

When this subject has cropped up before on here I've said that the third movement of the Pathetique positively demands applause even to the extent that it seems to be written in the score. The Pathetique effectively has two finales.

No. The Third Movement ends in G major - it cannot function as a "Finale" to a (complete) Symphony in B minor.

[marvin]

No. The Third Movement ends in G major - it cannot function as a "Finale" to a (complete) Symphony in B minor.

Well I would have expected an ignorant Prom mob (who always take things into their own hands) to clap and whoop at the end of the third movements but not a sophisticated, dour Berlin audience.

[marvin]

When this subject has cropped up before on here I've said that the third movement of the Pathetique positively demands applause even to the extent that it seems to be written in the score. The Pathetique effectively has two finales. I'm entirely comfortable with applause at this point and find at least one comment above to be somewhat less acceptable than any amount of inter-movement applause

No it doesn't demand applause - it's not the end of the work. Simples! Only an ignoramus would think that unless they had been instructed to do it sometime earlier. Perhaps it's a local custom or tradition with which we're not familiar.

[pastoralguy]

Andre Previn programmed this work in one of his first L.A. Phil concerts and was warned there would be prolonged applause at the of the third movement. What he wasn't told was that the audience would get up and leave!

[pastoralguy]

I find the argument that Tchaik/6 has "2 endings" to be specious. I also don't think the argument would apply to Brahms/4, another Symphony that ends tragically but that has a march for a third movement (that will induce audience applause) followed by a tragic fourth movement.
Reactions to music are subjective, and your viewpoint may be just as valid as mine. However, in both works, my viewpoint is that both Composers are setting the table for a concluding tragic denoument with their marche movements. They both seem to be saying that yes, in life one might achieve great things, recognition of peers and societal acclaim, but ultimately such achievements are meaningless or at least overriden by implacable fate. Both works were composed towards the end of their respective Composers lifetimes and not by some optimistic youths brimming with immortality. Whether it was premonitions of their own mortality, or overwhelming personal tragedy, both works imply that life may have it's share of pleasures but in the end it's the bad stuff that predominates, and both works tell us that their creators were not happy about it.
Clapping at the conclusion of the marche(s) therefore seems disrespectful. One needs to hear the complete Artistic Vision before one renders a judgement.
It would be no more appropriate than clapping atfter the polka movement of Smetena's Quartet From My Life, another work that ends tragically, or after the andante of Mahler/6, (in whatever order it is played), which offers a respite from the onslaught of tragedy.
If we think about it, very few works of major Composers end tragically. Where they exist, it is as if we are seeing the real face of the Composer, without a mask. Premature applause after a preliminary marche is like telling the Composer to put the mask back on, because without it, his vision is to ugly for us to contemplate

Beautifully put, sir!