When should the leader come onto the stage?

[BBMmk2]

[QUOTE=Ariosto;71038]How do they come on BBM? Drunk? [/QUOTe

I think you know what I mean there Ariosto

[Vile Consort]

The orchestra coming in together is a Bad Thing. It causes the audience to start applauding ... but it takes the orchestra longer to get on to the platform than the audience is prepared to applaud, so the applause becomes desultory and finally dies out embarrassingly. So much better for the orchestra to wander in willy-nilly and have a proper round of applause for them when the leader appears. It makes the orchestra members appear more human. Plus the crescendo of fragments of the pieces to come is a great introduction to the concert.

[Bryn]

On Friday night, some in the audience, expecting the arrival in stage of the leader, started applauding. When it turned out to be a couple of double bass player who were making their way on stage, the applause abated.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Plus the crescendo of fragments of the pieces to come is a great introduction to the concert.

Yes indeed. The Halle used to do this for 15 minutes or so before their concerts in the 1960s. Then after Barbirolli passed away, they began to be all formal. Much less interesting. In fact some people used to arrive early as they regarded the tuning-up as the best part of the concert.

[johnb]

The Halle used to do this for 15 minutes or so before their concerts in the 1960s.

I was thinking exactly the same thing. (My school was part of an arrangement for pupils to get reduced priced tickets for the Gods and I was a regular at the Free Trade Hall.)

[Lion-of-Vienna]

Why should the leader be a violinist? It seems like a ring-fenced post to me. What's wrong with the first clarinet or the bass trombonist? After all the captain of a football team doesn't have to play in a particular position.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I've often thought the same. I suppose it dates from the time when there was no conductor.
Who would lead the orchestra in the original version of Faure's Requiem?

[David Underdown]

I've always understood that the leader comes on last, and is applauded, as representative of the whole orchestra, the applause isn't for them personally ( and it means that the audience doesn't have to applaud the whole time the orchestra is coming on)

[BudgieJane]

I was thinking exactly the same thing. (My school was part of an arrangement for pupils to get reduced priced tickets for the Gods and I was a regular at the Free Trade Hall.)

I was a student in Manchester in the late 1960s and we got half-price tickets through the Student Union, so for a couple of years I was a regular at the Free Trade Hall also.

[Lion-of-Vienna]

Who would lead the orchestra in the original version of Faure's Requiem?

.............or Brahms's Second Serenade Op.16? In Liszt's First Piano Concerto I think the triangle player ought to be the leader!

[bluestateprommer]

.............or Brahms's Second Serenade Op.16?

Easy; the principal viola of the ensemble. I've seen Brahms' op. 16 once live where that was exactly how the "hierarchy" went, with the principal viola where the concertmaster would normally have been.

[Lee McLernon]

I've always understood that the leader comes on last, and is applauded, as representative of the whole orchestra, the applause isn't for them personally ( and it means that the audience doesn't have to applaud the whole time the orchestra is coming on)

My thoughts exactly.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I've always understood that the leader comes on last, and is applauded, as representative of the whole orchestra, the applause isn't for them personally ( and it means that the audience doesn't have to applaud the whole time the orchestra is coming on)

Is that really worth being paid an arm and a leg more than the other players?

[Mr Pee]

In fact some people used to arrive early as they regarded the tuning-up as the best part of the concert.

Contemporary music fans??

[Chris Newman]

I do not know if the principal violinist is the best person to be leader of an orchestra but, by gum, they make all the difference to the sound of an orchestra. Having somebody of the dynamism of Rodney Friend, Hugh Bean or Andrew Haveron sitting next to the conductor lifts an orchestra into world class. The same is true of the great leaders of baroque ensembles.