"Happy clappers" counterblast: J. Duchen on "how to be a nice audience"

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

..which rather blasts a hole in the theory that it's an emotional response to the music.

No; it's an emotional response to the Live performers. Audiences rarely applaud Films (the only time I've experienced this was at an early screening of A Room With a View) - and I've always felt rather silly applauding a group of loudspeakers after a concert performance of Gesang der Junglinge.

But I can understand why somebody, having witnessed performers visibly working to pull off an effective performance, would feel moved to make their enjoyment and appreciation known to those performers. It's not something I do, myself: nor do I applaud after an act/scene in a live performance of a play - but I can cope with at a concert it far more equitably than sweet-wrapper rustling, mobile-checking, snogging and/or chatting in "the quiet bits" ("I thought you said I'd know this piece!" "Wait a bit; there's a tune you'll know soon.")

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

But I can understand why somebody, having witnessed performers visibly working to pull off an effective performance, would feel moved to make their enjoyment and appreciation known to those performers. It's not something I do, myself: nor do I applaud after an act/scene in a live performance of a play - but I can cope with at a concert it far more equitably than sweet-wrapper rustling, mobile-checking, snogging and/or chatting in "the quiet bits" ("I thought you said I'd know this piece!" "Wait a bit; there's a tune you'll know soon.")

I can understand it too, but equally I do not see why it is not possible for the same people to wait until the work has actually finished before doing so. A gap between movements might be regarded as (e.g.) 8 bars rest, rather than the end of a piece followed by the beginning of a new one.

[Ferretfancy]

I know I've said this before, but intrusive applause at the Proms very rarely starts in the Arena or Gallery. Usually somebody in the higher and cheaper seats starts it off, and the stalls join in.
I find it maddening. A classic case was the excellent performance of the Prokofiev First Violin Concerto last week, where it was difficult to sense the continuing tension in the performance between the first and second movements, as the happy clappers interrupted it.

I'm afraid I blew my top a few days ago during Beethoven's 8th, when right from the outset a small lady just in the corner of my eye decided to twist and jiggle out of step throughout. This led to a heated exchange at the interval, as I was looking forward to the 7th. Luckily the problem was solved when two newcomers arrived nearby, and I was able to ask them to stand so that they blocked my view of the pest. Why do these people exist? There ought to be a law!

[Serial_Apologist]

I know I've said this before, but intrusive applause at the Proms very rarely starts in the Arena or Gallery. Usually somebody in the higher and cheaper seats starts it off, and the stalls join in.
I find it maddening. A classic case was the excellent performance of the Prokofiev First Violin Concerto last week, where it was difficult to sense the continuing tension in the performance between the first and second movements, as the happy clappers interrupted it.

I'm afraid I blew my top a few days ago during Beethoven's 8th, when right from the outset a small lady just in the corner of my eye decided to twist and jiggle out of step throughout. This led to a heated exchange at the interval, as I was looking forward to the 7th. Luckily the problem was solved when two newcomers arrived nearby, and I was able to ask them to stand so that they blocked my view of the pest. Why do these people exist? There ought to be a law!

It's a real problem - is music "supposed" to engage body as well as mind and soul? Various conventions arose in concert hall and church situations that implied no, and that contravention of these conventions in turn implied inappropriate response. In my time it was definitely non-U to tap the foot, even, to Mozart. Something of a reversal has taken place: applause greets RC cathedral sermons; Pentecostal congregations encouraged to go wild and speak in tongues. Today the Platonic (Western?) notion of spirituality disconnecting soul from body, exemplified in non-metricised Plainsong and the various strands of European church music at least up to Tallis, it to be found in jazz clubs - the last place, one would think, but I myself was on two occasions last year requested to cease moving my seated body in sync with a music ready-made to transcend the mind/body dualism spoken of in Zen.

Unless some visual parameter has been written in, as in opera, ballet or theatre, all music once brought off the paper is essentially encoded sound; in my case best apprehended eyes shut. Unless all independently decide to engage mind and body in such situations, thereby by virtue of the massed relative asynchronicity of bodily movements removing the sore thumb single individual jerking the bench, so to speak, the problem of feeling the music in dem bones too will persist.

[ahinton]

Surely simply because when you're applauding you are showing appreciation of the performance - and if the performers can't hear you, there's no point!

It's not so straightforward as that; when audiences applaud at a live performance, are they not also applauding the composer, whether or not he/she is present and whether or not he/she is dead?...

[Vile Consort]

It's not so much convention as having consideration for your neighbours. The last thing I want at a concert is people in the seats around me jiggling around almost in time to the music.

[Il Grande Inquisitor]

Members may be interested to read the experience my colleague Alexa Coghlan suffered at the Proms on Sunday evening:

How much noise is too much noise in the classical concert-hall? When the coughing, rustling and texting is infuriating you is it ever ok to speak out?

http://www.theartsdesk.com/classical-music/opinion-how-much-noise-too-much-noise-classical-concert-hall

[JohnSkelton]

Members may be interested to read the experience my colleague Alexa Coghlan suffered at the Proms on Sunday evening:
http://www.theartsdesk.com/classical...l-concert-hall

I had a similar experience (directed at my companion) at the Proms a few years ago now - a friend's daughter who was also new to classical concerts. Her crime was to look in the programme to see what was being played and when she couldn't open the thing properly to very quietly ask me which piece was it. Again the delayed response was misogynistic abuse from a couple of men about my age (so middle-aged). Whatever irritations there are I'm convinced the New Statesman article your colleague refers to has a large grain of truth to it, and that a subset of people attend classical concerts in order to be (a) as superior as possible (b) to get as angry as possible about perceived offences against 'their' world.

[Edit: the comments to Alexandra Coghlan's piece suggest it's a particular Proms phenomenon. I've never encountered anything as distasteful as that evening elsewhere]

[Il Grande Inquisitor]

Edit: the comments to Alexandra Coghlan's piece suggest it's a particular Proms phenomenon. I've never encountered anything as distasteful as that evening elsewhere

John, I'd tend to agree. I'm not sure what it is about the Royal Albert Hall which brings out the worst in some people. I'd hasten to add that the poor behaviour I've seen hasn't been from Prommers in the Arena, but from seated areas. This was certainly the case for Alexa the other evening.

[Flay]

It is sad to hear about the unkind vehemence of some. One of the comments from IGI's link above puts things into perspective:

The odd thing is, such encounters can't possibly improve the experience of the complainer any more than it does the complained about.

How true. A polite request for silence or courtesy is more likely to achieve results than outright rudeness.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Bu isn't the extreme behaviour of some caused by fear? Fear that as there is no clear code of conduct, the only way to create equilibrium is to intervene personally in an understated, yet aggressive way?

[french frank]

The Coghlan article is almost unbearable to read for the sheer cruelty involved - and I do think it goes well beyond rudeness. And yet, there's also an insensitivity too, almost always, in the behaviour of the 'guilty'. Inexperience and ignorance are not always reasonable excuses. However much you may rely on your smartphone on a daily basis, it must surely be obvious that no one else is switching theirs on and off to take a glance? That people sit still rather than jig about, whisper or fidget? That the remarkable thing, most of the time, is how quiet a large, packed concert hall can be? And I have actually known people to take advantage of a short pause to apologetically remove themselves and their cough...

[JohnSkelton]

In most cases there's an obvious difference between boorish behaviour - talking over the music, jumping up and down, texting etc. and just something that happens - coughing, sneezing, spontaneous reaction, quietly asking what's that etc. There's an obverse boorishness and that's people who seem to go to concerts specifically to take offence at minor irritations (if that).

This goes round and round in circles and I'm not advocating anything goes but if concerts are such excruciatingly hermetic events with codes of conduct that half the audience sit there in a state of terror at breaking the code and the other half sit there waiting to pounce then something is horribly wrong. I appreciate that people react differently, but inter-movement applause doesn't affect me one way or another, I don't find my concentration fatally disturbed by a snatch of conversation, I don't mind someone consulting a programme and making a bit of noise ... context and extent are surely important. Yes, I know the response could be 'just because these things don't bother you' but the response to that could easily be 'just because they bother you'. It's hard enough to get people who don't already bother with classical music to take an interest, so to alienate someone who is doing that and who isn't acting in a way that's deliberately or even accidentally disruptive of the expected calm and quiet to any significant extent (yes, I know that's personal: but just looked at as dispassionately as possible) just seems at best over fussy and at worst selfish in its own way. Again, I'm sure there are people who wait for an opportunity to make a point and chastise less experienced or knowledgeable audience members. I'm sure that's not the case with anyone here, but I'm equally sure it happens.

Human beings go to concerts too and shouldn't be expected to sit in nervous terror . IMO.

[pilamenon]

In most cases there's an obvious difference between boorish behaviour - talking over the music, jumping up and down, texting etc. and just something that happens - coughing, sneezing, spontaneous reaction, quietly asking what's that etc. There's an obverse boorishness and that's people who seem to go to concerts specifically to take offence at minor irritations (if that).

This goes round and round in circles and I'm not advocating anything goes but if concerts are such excruciatingly hermetic events with codes of conduct that half the audience sit there in a state of terror at breaking the code and the other half sit there waiting to pounce then something is horribly wrong. I appreciate that people react differently, but inter-movement applause doesn't affect me one way or another, I don't find my concentration fatally disturbed by a snatch of conversation, I don't mind someone consulting a programme and making a bit of noise ... context and extent are surely important. Yes, I know the response could be 'just because these things don't bother you' but the response to that could easily be 'just because they bother you'. It's hard enough to get people who don't already bother with classical music to take an interest, so to alienate someone who is doing that and who isn't acting in a way that's deliberately or even accidentally disruptive of the expected calm and quiet to any significant extent (yes, I know that's personal: but just looked at as dispassionately as possible) just seems at best over fussy and at worst selfish in its own way. Again, I'm sure there are people who wait for an opportunity to make a point and chastise less experienced or knowledgeable audience members. I'm sure that's not the case with anyone here, but I'm equally sure it happens.

Human beings go to concerts too and shouldn't be expected to sit in nervous terror . IMO.

I agree with this 100%. A pity the ushers did not dare/feel able/care to challenge the unacceptable behaviour of those three men.

On the clapping, it is peculiar the way it happens at some Proms concerts but not others. I can only assume there is one individual or a small group of occasional concert-goers who start it off, and then some others half-heartedly join in. The Smetana/Prokofiev/Dvorak concert saw minor polite applause at the end of every movement, yet there was no inter-movement applause at all at some of the Beethoven concerts. It doesn't bother me one way or the other, anyway. I find the tight-lipped disapproval far more unbecoming.

[Flosshilde]

Human beings go to concerts too and shouldn't be expected to sit in nervous terror . IMO.

Unless the programme includes something like the Symphonie Fantastique


I wonder, with all this fulminating against applause between movements, has anyone complained to the orchestra if some of its members re-tune during breaks?