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

[MrGongGong]

I take it that you give the same lecture to those who applaud between movements..

I don't give a "lecture" to anyone
but some folks seem unable to recognise that The Proms isn't a solemn religious ritual (all the time)

I'm not sure (and this is from the perspective of someone who does write the stuff!) that the "composers wishes" are necessarily paramount?

If I was asked to write a piece for The Proms I would expect there to be sound in between sections, if I didn't want that I would make the music seamless.
If I wanted to write a piece with silences between sections (which I have done) I would engineer a context where this would work.

Much of the nonsense around this seems to be IMV to do with folks wanting music to have fixed modes of reception.

I've been to gigs in pubs where folks get annoyed that people are talking or there is the sound of clinking glasses during their set, equally daft to expect anything else.

[Flosshilde]

Not in the post you link to there

You could always try this one -

It has to be at least possible that some who applaud between movements know full well that the convention as current is that you do NOT clap but deliberately do it ... because they know quite a lot of people dislike it and want to say 'tough, I want to so I'll do it',

or have a look at some of Alpensinfonie's posts.

[gurnemanz]

I don't like movement clapping but dislike even more the clapping (often with loud and raucous cheering and even high-pitched shrieking) of individual arias during operas. It obviously destroys the mood of the scene and interrupts the action, yet it seems to be perfectly acceptable, as applauding a famous speech in a Shakespeare play would not be.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I don't like movement clapping but dislike even more the clapping (often with loud and raucous cheering and even high-pitched shrieking) of individual arias during operas. It obviously destroys the mood of the scene and interrupts the action, yet it seems to be perfectly acceptable, as applauding a famous speech in a Shakespeare play would not be.

It does destroy the mood, and it looks a little strange when the singers on stage freeze their (often quite uncomfortable) positions mid-drama.

[Stanfordian]

It does destroy the mood, and it looks a little strange when the singers on stage freeze their (often quite uncomfortable) positions mid-drama.

Hiya Eine Alpensinfonie,

I attend operas regularly and believe the cheering after an aria to show appreciation is valuable, it helps provide atmosphere and the singers especially the top performers expect it and I'm sure love it too. Most conductors leave a space for it in proceedings.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Hiya Eine Alpensinfonie,

I believe the cheering after an aria to show appreciation is necessary, it helps provide atmosphere and the singers especially the top performers expect it and I'm sure love it too. Most conductors leave a space for it in proceedings.

Indeed, and the composers allowed for it too, until they began "through-composing". So you can applaud after Celeste Aida, but not after Nessun Dorma.

[Sir Velo]

Respect is a two way Street. Have some for those who show their approbation during the hiatus between separate movements of a multi-movement work.

A valid point, but how is this reciprocated by those who applaud towards those who prefer silence? Unless, one practises the art of one hand clapping, this does seem a one way street!

Having said that, a little judgement is surely called for. Concertos and works which are less "through composed" (eg suites etc) often cry out for applause - witness the recent Prokofiev concerto fest, where the sheer brio of the performances meant that any silence between movements would have seemed churlishly unappreciative.

[french frank]

You could always try this one -

No, that doesn't assert that people's motives are wholly mischievous, but that it is possibly the case with some people. As I read this thread I'm rather inclined to agree.

I see some of what seem to me to be the central arguments are largely ignored .

[Beef Oven!]

It has to be at least possible that some who applaud between movements know full well that the convention as current is that you do NOT clap but deliberately do it because maybe.................because they know quite a lot of people dislike it and want to say 'tough, I want to so I'll do it'

This might be at most possible, in theory but incredibly unlikely.

My objection is merely because I have this possibly outdated view that the work as a whole has been designed to hang together and I'd like to hear what the composer / instrumentalists have to say in different moods before I butt in. It seems to me to at the very least break up the design by my imposition of my own approval before the whole is complete. Seems counter-intuitive, but there you go.....what do I know!!

But clapping doesn't interfere with works 'hanging together' (whatever that might mean). I agree with you, your view is outdated and counterintuitive!

Question is: would the clappers also BOO between movements if they disliked what they had heard? And if they did, what would happen then?

This is a very good question! I'll give my view straight-up, no chaser. No.

Booing can only take place, if at all, when all is said and done performance-wise. To boo between movements would IMV, scupper the performance.

[Beef Oven!]

No, that doesn't assert that people's motives are wholly mischievous, but that it is possibly the case with some people. As I read this thread I'm rather inclined to agree.

I really can understand how you can draw such a conclusion.

It reminds me of your suspicion that some people are proud (or something like that) of liking a broad range of music, just for the sake or 'virtue' of it. Perhaps less focus on what you think people's motivations might be, could be more revealing.

I see some of what seem to me to be the central arguments are largely ignored .

There is a difference between 'ignoring the central argument' (as you see it) and not thinking that it has much merit (or as I believe, is mainly irrelevant).

[Beef Oven!]

[QUOTE]

A valid point, but how is this reciprocated by those who applaud towards those who prefer silence? Unless, one practises the art of one hand clapping, this does seem a one way street!

Perhaps 'one-way street' gives the wrong connotations, but I agree, it can only be one or the other!

Having said that, a little judgement is surely called for. Concertos and works which are less "through composed" (eg suites etc) often cry out for applause - witness the recent Prokofiev concerto fest, where the sheer brio of the performances meant that any silence between movements would have seemed churlishly unappreciative.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

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.

Unlike the 2nd (where the "pause" instruction is written at the end of the First Movement) the 3rd has such an instruction in the preface:

The Symphony is divided into two parts. Part 1 consists of movement I, Part 2 of movements II, III, IV, V and VI. After Part 1 a long pause.

[Serial_Apologist]

No, that doesn't assert that people's motives are wholly mischievous, but that it is possibly the case with some people. As I read this thread I'm rather inclined to agree.

I see some of what seem to me to be the central arguments are largely ignored .

Of which one might be: but what about if people suddenly started applauding in the middle of a movement, say, after a solo cadenza? Would this become acceptable on the same grounds as saying that clapping between movements has become once more acceptable? To which the answer comes: well, the former doesn't happen, so what is the point in raising hypothetics? The point then is answered that if one form of behaviour has been introduced regardless of the feelings of others, what is to stop other forms? While having no particularly strong feelings one way or the other, apart from that some people feel The Proms affords them an affordable opportunity, rarely found elsewhere owing to the money-grabbing way society has developed of disseminating leisure activity, the point is to experience live classical music as a means of connecting with others across the ages most adept, by, er, cultural agreement, at communicating from depths of feeling most would seem from music's general popularity able to benefit from by sharing.

Anywhere can become a shrine: in Bristol in the late 1980s a working class pub in Bedminster called The Albert, where the wrapt spirit of attentiveness to every note of a bass solo was as tangible as the passing of wine and wafers to communicants - patience less demanded than willingly indulged, with the convention of clapping at its end only observed if the music signalled its own means of proceeding uninterrupted.

Perhaps it is by reference to qualities of communication that the issue of if, when and how to show appreciation can best be judged? The problem then consists in establishing who decides what quality is - and then, like it or not, we are back in that problematic area of signs and significations, and who legitmises what, and to what ends.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Of which one might be: but what about if people suddenly started applauding in the middle of a movement, say, after a solo cadenza? Would this become acceptable on the same grounds as saying that clapping between movements has become once more acceptable?

No, it hasn't.

[Bryn]

Unlike the 2nd (where the "pause" instruction is written at the end of the First Movement) the 3rd has such an instruction in the preface:

The Symphony is divided into two parts. Part 1 consists of movement I, Part 2 of movements II, III, IV, V and VI. After Part 1 a long pause.

Ah yes. I now see my Dover reproduction of the 1906 Universal score has it on the "Instrumentation" page, just after the high gallery tuned bells and boys' choir.