Prom 57: Saturday 27th August 2011 (Hillborg, Mozart, Beethoven)

[hackneyvi]

Indeed. But we are now in the 21st century and it is customary not to applaud the different movements of a symphony. You can go back to the nineteenth century if you like, without all the benefits of modern science etc., but I think I'll stay in the present day, thank you very much.

Times change. To do something which resembles a 19th century pratice doesn't mean you've gone back in time, JS! It just means the times have changed again.

I imagine, like me, you're middle-aged and beginning to struggle with the recognition that cultures (the agreements about how things are done) change over time and that the culture of one's youth is joined and then superceded by others. 'Our' culture is disappearing, as is natural, and with it goes our sense of control. Though this sense of control was a falsehood because all we were ever doing was conforming, we weren't controlling. I think I tend to try to control when I feel I have little or no power and, being human, I imagine this is a commonplace reaction.

I'd like to applaud (and boo at the adverts) more often at the cinema. No-one involved in the film is ever going to know but it enables me to express my feelings about the piece, to the piece, at a moment when they're fullest.

What are you expressing by your silence between movements? What is being expressed by the applause you object to? Are you disturbed by the noise? Is it that you see the noise as an empty convention because it isn't actually moved by feeling? Or is it the explicit presence of feeling you don't share which disturbs you?

Live music may become a sorrow for you if you don't find a more positive way to respond to the changes in performance culture.

[pilamenon]

No, let's not.

Says it all really.

[Ferretfancy]

I certainly did not wish to be unkind to the visitors in the rear of the Arena, nobody had advised them not to take flash photographs either, although in fairness this didn't happen during the music. There is an announcement about photography, by the way. It may well be true that in Mozart and Beethoven's time there was applause after every trill, but nowadays we surely have learned not to break the tension. Return to the past would presumably mean that we would be free to smoke pipes, peer through our lorgnettes and comment to our friends on the unsuitable dress sense of others in the audience.
Not long ago there was loud and sustained clapping at the end of the first movement of Shostakovich's Fourth Symphony,a very deep moment before the work moves on. Would applause enthusiasts endorse that? I think not.

[salymap]

It certainly didn't occur to many people to clap between movements when I was young and fit enough to go to concerts. The conductor was in control. If a desultory bit of clapping started, Boult,Sargent,Beecham,
whoever, would raise one hand, turn a page of their score over, etc and the clapping stopped. No-one gave anyone dirty looks except the conductor and, in the case of Beecham, a few choice words.

[St leonards14]

Pretty duff? Oh for heaven's sake.
If so, it was certainly my kind of duff: I noted the exquisite phrasing, the lovely balance, the fine ensemble, the gorgeous woodwind playing, and the superb partnership with the soloist...

I attended last night and I thought the orchestra and soloist were exceptionally polished in the Mozart. However, the tempi were all far too similar... it was smooth and like melted chocolate but lacked bite and attack. I don't know the tempo markings for No 27 but I bet they weren't observed. It was by the end rather dull.

The Beethoven however, was tremendous. When Zinman started it was perfectly clear that he had come to show us how he wanted Beethoven played and off he went!! It was great. (marred by the imbecilic applause between movements and someone started to cheer at the end of the 3rd movement thinking it was finished...)

Oh.... and as for the first peice... usual new composition stuff... least said the better!!!

[St leonards14]

P.S. I can spell piece.. generally!!

[Ferretfancy]

I haven't heard the broadcast, did they include the encore from The Creatures of Prometheus? it was delightfully done.

[makropulos]

I haven't heard the broadcast, did they include the encore from The Creatures of Prometheus? it was delightfully done.

Ferretfancy - yes they did include it on the radio, and it was very nicely done.

[cavatina]

I'd like to applaud (and boo at the adverts) more often at the cinema. No-one involved in the film is ever going to know but it enables me to express my feelings about the piece, to the piece, at a moment when they're fullest.

Maybe you're just going to the wrong theatre. In Manhattan, hearing people applaud at Film Forum isn't unusual at all.

As for clapping between movements, you don't have to like it to realise that shooting everybody a "death glare from Hell" isn't going to accomplish anything. Actually, I find it more of a disruption to find myself instantly plunged in the middle of a seething, roiling cauldron of hate every time somebody claps at the wrong time or some poor sod forgets to stifle his cough. Have you never had an explosive cough you couldn't control? Although it might seem like they empty the hospital wards every night for the express purpose of ticking you off, getting enraged doesn't do a bit of good, and talking about it during the music only serves to put a complete buzzkill on everyone around you.

[Petrushka]

I haven't heard the broadcast, did they include the encore from The Creatures of Prometheus? it was delightfully done.

Yes, the live broadcast did indeed include the encore.

On the question of inter-movement applause, this used to annoy me considerably but I can't get much worked up about it now. There is goimg to be noise anyway whether it's coughing, shuffling or whatever. It gets tiresome if between, say, movements of the Planets but apart from that isn't much of an issue. When applause broke out after the first movement of the Brahms 3 last week, Haitink quickly waggled his baton to indicate his disapproval and it didn't happen again. An announcement to discourage inappropriate applause could be made along with the plea for no photography and mobile phones over the PA system hut it needs someone with a bit more authority in their voice than Katie D.

Personally, I blame Sir Roger Norrington who strongly encouraged inter-movement applause in the early 1980's

[cavatina]

Dudamel kept people from applauding by not lowering his baton between movements. If every conductor did this, clapping would be much less of a problem.

[salymap]

Yes, the live broadcast did indeed include the encore.

On the question of inter-movement applause, this used to annoy me considerably but I can't get much worked up about it now. There is goimg to be noise anyway whether it's coughing, shuffling or whatever. It gets tiresome if between, say, movements of the Planets but apart from that isn't much of an issue. When applause broke out after the first movement of the Brahms 3 last week, Haitink quickly waggled his baton to indicate his disapproval and it didn't happen again. An announcement to discourage inappropriate applause could be made along with the plea for no photography and mobile phones over the PA system hut it needs someone with a bit more authority in their voice than Katie D.

Personally, I blame Sir Roger Norrington who strongly encouraged inter-movement applause in the early 1980's

I look forward to reading an article in the new BBCMM entitled Sir Roger Norrington,a blast of fresh air in a conformist music world.

[amateur51]

Dudamel kept people from applauding by not lowering his baton between movements. If every conductor did this, clapping would be much less of a problem.

I spotted that too, cavatina

Don't know what he'd done to his hair tho'

[Serial_Apologist]

Times change. To do something which resembles a 19th century pratice doesn't mean you've gone back in time, JS! It just means the times have changed again.

I imagine, like me, you're middle-aged and beginning to struggle with the recognition that cultures (the agreements about how things are done) change over time and that the culture of one's youth is joined and then superceded by others. 'Our' culture is disappearing, as is natural, and with it goes our sense of control. Though this sense of control was a falsehood because all we were ever doing was conforming, we weren't controlling. I think I tend to try to control when I feel I have little or no power and, being human, I imagine this is a commonplace reaction.

I'd like to applaud (and boo at the adverts) more often at the cinema. No-one involved in the film is ever going to know but it enables me to express my feelings about the piece, to the piece, at a moment when they're fullest.

What are you expressing by your silence between movements? What is being expressed by the applause you object to? Are you disturbed by the noise? Is it that you see the noise as an empty convention because it isn't actually moved by feeling? Or is it the explicit presence of feeling you don't share which disturbs you?

Live music may become a sorrow for you if you don't find a more positive way to respond to the changes in performance culture.

I think this is the best posting of this debate about inter-movement clapping - about which, as a jazzer maybe, I am equinanimous in general. One is not, after all, interrupting anything by clapping a movement, any more than one is interrupting anything by clapping at the end.

That said, jazz makes allowances for clapping a good solo, for instance, by virtue of its improvisational nature; the band can mark time, as a comedian does when acknowledging laughter. And I am led to believe that in opera it is sometimes practice to applaud a particular aria that is followed by a natural break in the music - not that I have ever been to an opera. Where dificulty might arise could be if people started applauding particular passages *within* a movement, given that the score might not have made allowances for the possibility. But I don't see this happening, or as likely to.

S-A

[barber olly]

Two points I would make on applause.
1 Why did Zinman, as did Dausgaard last Monday fell the need to crash the applause with the first notes of the Symphony? From a conductor of his experience it must have been deliberate.
2 Perhaps those who clap at concerts at the end of movements do so because most of their listening is done on Breakfast (or CFM) and think they are complete works.