Applause....I know, I know..........

[jean]

I don't know, but i'm sure there will be.

If there are, would you expect the eager listener to subordinate his desires to those of the composer?

[MrGongGong]

If there are, would you expect the eager listener to subordinate his desires to those of the composer?

Which listener?
Which composer?
Where is the performance?
What time of day?
How loud is it?
What is the last sound we hear before the silence?

and so on

These ARE real questions for composers and performers.

[Serial_Apologist]

Jean and I are, I think, in agreement in seeing the significance here of the Aristotle/Hobbes argument. Neither philosopher can be conclusively demonstrated to have been 'right': they point up the differences between socially aware/responsive people and those who are probably neither. The deeper question was which of the two was the natural disposition of human beings. Answer: neither. Some people are considerate towards others, some are inconsiderate.

You cannot argue about personal preferences, but you can try to understand them.

Indeed.

Like Ferney I'm not too bothered on the issue of inter-movement applause. But on the question whether humans are naturally disposed towards social awareness and responsiveness, the adult or peer group pressure from an early age that counts for compliance can be exerted either for wider purposes of exclusion (you don't belong here if you don't do as we do) or overcoming the symptoms or maybe eventually even the causes of social division. Even if we view societies as having evolved from some presumed survival of the fittest* point in history or pre-history in which it was every man or woman for him or herself - or maybe as today returning to such individualistic pretexts/covers for entrepreneurialism or defeating supposed ingrained indolence - any social grouping as such exerts encoded conformisms in one manifestation or another on wayward behaviour perceived as threatening to group identity and (t)hence survival. Remember the old Sartrian formula because its relevance has never gone away, just been recycled in accordance to present-day, erm, political (i.e. power relations) realities.

(Or "sh*ttest")

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

A quick question(s) - still relevant I hope. Has any composer written/specified the silences between the movements? (as an integral part of the music and not just in a symphony/concerto sense). There are some pieces in my opinion that warrant silence. There's that choral piece isn't there where many minutes of silence are called for between movements?

Mahler's Resurrection Symphony - the composer wrote after the First Movement "There should be a Pause of at least Five minutes here". ("Pause" also meaning "interval" in German.) Nobody takes any notice, in my experience - mea culpa when I play the work on CD!

[Serial_Apologist]

Mahler's Resurrection Symphony - the composer wrote after the First Movement "There should be a Pause of at least Five minutes here". ("Pause" also meaning "interval" in German.) Nobody takes any notice, in my experience - mea culpa when I play the work on CD!

Thinking further on this, perhaps it is music which in its chosen means of expression is felt to transcend issues of codification specific to language - and therefore agreements as to what in the manner of behavour does not lead to social exclusion - that brings the issue of applause or other forms of "interruption" to performance most to the fore? Some Christian denominations such as the CofE have long discouraged applause in religious observance, presumably out of fear of equating religious observance with entertainment, though this is now questioned in Pentecostal practices, and for as long as I can remember has not applied in Roman Catholic observances. ("Is this a football match?" my mother would ask ) Could it be that those who so object to audiences responding (whether spontaneously or under assumed obligation) before a work is concluded are imputing some sense of the sacred into the concert situation?

[Bryn]

A quick question(s) - still relevant I hope. Has any composer written/specified the silences between the movements? (as an integral part of the music and not just in a symphony/concerto sense). There are some pieces in my opinion that warrant silence. There's that choral piece isn't there where many minutes of silence are called for between movements?

Messiaen asked for 1 minute silence between the movements of Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum but very rarely got such, nor even pauses of that duration.

Mahler's 2nd has already been mentioned. His 3rd falls into 2 Parts, the first movement and the other five, but I am not sure whether he asked for silence between the 2 Parts or not.

[ahinton]

Mahler's Resurrection Symphony - the composer wrote after the First Movement "There should be a Pause of at least Five minutes here". ("Pause" also meaning "interval" in German.) Nobody takes any notice, in my experience - mea culpa when I play the work on CD!

It's true indeed, but did anyone take notice of this in the symphony's early days, for example? My first composition teacher Emile Spira, who knew Mahler's symphonies very well, once told me (after he'd let me into the secret that there was musical life before his teacher Webern!) that the composer's instruction here probably arose from his expectations of audience concentration as much as anything else and, whilst neither I nor presumably he had any concrete evidence in support of such a theory, it somehow seems less than implausible.

The solo piano and organ symphonies of Sorabji are a case in point, albeit for more practical and sustainable reasons, I think.

I imagine that most of us would think of a "symphony" as a integreated work usually to be played from beginning to end without breaks othr than between movements. Each of Sorabji's three organ symphonies is cast in three movements; the first, by far the shortest, was completed in 1924 before Messiaen's first organ works and occupies a whisker short of two hours. Sorabji told me that (insofar as he ever expected any performance of it at all), it should be played in one go with intervals between movements of not more than five minutes (i.e. not long enough for the audience to leave and return), which is what's happened since its première in 1987.

His second and third organ symphonies, however, are quite another matter. No. 2 reached its première in 2010 and, although given as a single performance, intervals between its movements were around 35 and 50 minutes respectively; this is hardly surprising, given that the performance of the music itself (i.e. excluding the intervals) occupied nine hours, half of which was taken up by the middle movement alone (although the organist, Kevin Bowyer, believes that this overall duration could be knocked down to a little under eight hours given enough practice time, although he doesn't specify how many years' practice that might be). No. 3, barely shorter than No. 2, has yet to be performed but, when it is, similar intervals will be necessary, as its finale (which nevertheless mercifully breaks down into subsections) is by far its longest movement.

Of Sorabji's seven symphonies for piano solo, the last three have been performed to date; 4 & 6 are each not far short of five hours in duration and need to be broken down by the insertion of intervals in performance, as indeed has been the case at each hearing. 5 the most obvious to plan because it has but two movements of which the first plays continuously for almost three quarters of an hour and the second, about twice that length, is cast in several subsections but there's no need to break these up with intervals. For the record, our member BeefOven! has testified in these annals to just how time flies in No. 6, whose UK première he attended.

Clearly, then, because performance of these works will of necessity include intervals, there will accordingly be applause between certain of their movements, the one exception being the third piano symphony which has yet to be performed but which has no immediately obvious points in which to insert intervals.

Composers wishing to have their symphonic works performed without applause between their movements would would therefore do well not to write such works with durations too long for practical performance without intervals. The other way to deal with this "problem" (to the extent that it's perceived to be one) is to do what Sibelius did in his last symphony, Pettersson in quite a few of his symphonies (of which No. 9 and No. 13 each exceed one hour in duration) and, for that matter, Schönberg and van Dieren in their respective first numbered quartets, namely to cast them in single movements...

[Bryn]

When Havergal Brian's "Gothic" Symphony received its first 'fully'* professional performance at the RAH, conducted by Sir Adrian Boult, it was split between the third and fourth movement. There was an interval of 20 minutes or so, then the final chord of the scherzo was repeated as the first of the Te Deum, this despite the attacca marking in the score. Now that's what respect Boult and the BBC had for the score.

* The choral forces were mainly non-professional.

[gurnemanz]

Mahler's Resurrection Symphony - the composer wrote after the First Movement "There should be a Pause of at least Five minutes here". ("Pause" also meaning "interval" in German.) Nobody takes any notice, in my experience - mea culpa when I play the work on CD!

This was new to me and out of curiosity I checked the original German: "Hier folgt eine Pause von mindestens 5 Minuten". "Here follows etc ....." i.e. expressed as a statement of fact with no mention of "should".

[Bryn]

Oh, and though Cage's 4'33" falls into 3 movements, I do not recall his calling for silence between them.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

This was new to me and out of curiosity I checked the original German: "Hier folgt eine Pause von mindestens 5 Minuten". "Here follows etc ....." i.e. expressed as a statement of fact with no mention of "should".

[Beef Oven!]

This was new to me and out of curiosity I checked the original German: "Hier folgt eine Pause von mindestens 5 Minuten". "Here follows etc ....." i.e. expressed as a statement of fact with no mention of "should".

Very interesting. Ever since I've known this symphony, I've believed that Mahler's wishes were that a pause should be observed.

[CallMePaul]

Mahler's 3rd falls into 2 Parts, the first movement and the other five, but I am not sure whether he asked for silence between the 2 Parts or not.

I recall a performance in Liverpool's Philharmonic Hall in the 70s (RLPO conducted by Leif Segerstam) of Mahler 3 which had a full 20-minute interval between the first and second movements! No-one would do that now of course, but I have no idea why - front-of-house pressure for bar income or simply that the work was less familiar then than now and those concerned felt the audience and musicians needed a break?

[ahinton]

Very interesting. Ever since I've known this symphony, I've believed that Mahler's wishes were that a pause should be observed.

I'm sure that they were at the time but wonder whether he might have changed his mind in later years had he enjoyed a reasonable lifespan - particularly, perhaps, following his listening to the première of his young friend's Gurrelieder performed at a single stretch; after all, if he could change his mind about the order of middle movements. in the sixth...