Proms 2018

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Firstly, "most people" have never heard of HIPP, let alone take it to relate purely to those actually playing the music. Just consider the approach HIPP luminaries such as Norrington, JEG, Robert Levin, et al towards applause between moevemts. Any idiosyncracy might more appositely be attributed to those objecting to such demonstrations of approbation.

Well Norrington merely confirms my allegation of attention seeking - turning round to "request" applause after his historically un-HIPP Proms performance of Elgar 1. "Look at me; I'm great."

[vinteuil]

Because it's annoying and unnecessary.

"because it's annoying" - translate : I, Alpensifonie, find it annoying.

"and unnecessary" - translate : I, Alpensinfonie, find it 'unnecessary'.

Definitions of 'necessary' and 'unnecessary' to follow if necessary.


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[vinteuil]

Well Norrington merely confirms my allegation of attention seeking - turning round to "request" applause after his historically un-HIPP Proms performance of Elgar 1. "Look at me; I'm great."

... why do I get the impression that our Alpie is no fan of Sir Roger Norrington? Have there been any hints of this before?

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[Pulcinella]

On and on and on and on and on and on...

Can I ask: why are people so exercised about this issue?

Because for some people such intrusions impinge negatively on their enjoyment.
The clappers feel they have the entitlement to clap.
The no clappers seem to be vilified for not liking the interruptions, but have their entitlement to an uninterrupted performance denied.

I now exercise my entitlement not to go to (and sometimes even listen to) concerts where I supect that the clappers will be making their presence felt.
And, for what it's worth, I sing in a choir and would not expect our audience to clap between every item that we sing.
And they don't.
But then, they know how to behave up north; much less coughing and shuffling in evidence at concerts and performances (including cinema relays) I've been to since moving here than I endured previously.

[french frank]

On and on and on and on and on and on...

Can I ask: why are people so exercised about this issue?

That's what it's supposed to do. That's why we start it every year. So far it's going very well, isn't it?

As I understand it, people who conceive of, say, a symphony as a single work with sections which interrelate as part of a composer's overall design find the extraneous noise (and, to be fair, that does include outbreaks of inter-movement coughing too) destroys any sense that it is a single work rather than a certain number of short works, and very distracting as it disturbs their concentration in following the compositional threads.

Me, I don't go to live concerts any more, nor listen to Radio 3: I'm only here for the debate. I'd compare it a bit like reading a chapter at a time of a novel, with long periods in between each chapter so that you can't quite remember what went before. Only in effect: it's not intended as a precise analogy.

[Lat-Literal]

That's what it's supposed to do. That's why we start it every year. So far it's going very well, isn't it?

As I understand it, people who conceive of, say, a symphony as a single work with sections which interrelate as part of a composer's overall design find the extraneous noise (and, to be fair, that does include outbreaks of inter-movement coughing too) destroys any sense that it is a single work rather than a certain number of short works, and very distracting as it disturbs their concentration in following the compositional threads.

Me, I don't go to live concerts any more, nor listen to Radio 3: I'm only here for the debate. I'd compare it a bit like reading a chapter at a time of a novel, with long periods in between each chapter so that you can't quite remember what went before. Only in effect: it's not intended as a precise analogy.

And, of course......this has probably been said umpteen times - being used to bite sized "as if on a 45" chunks at breakfast and seven or eight commercial breaks an hour can suggest that length is somehow wrong. Cinema doesn't have the same problem. At most, popcorn is scoffed. But then television programmes, at least on the BBC, can often be quite lengthy. Even Strictly Come Dancing. Most people do not dance in their living rooms to it but many provide clapping and by default the opposite via phone to determine who is to be eliminated. Elimination is now a more popular pastime than fishing. In ten years time, there will be a text vote at the interval to decide if the string section should go, whatever its second half role. Some promising but unknown 15 year old with the spoons or a xylophone and is not named Raheem Sterling will be brought on to see if he can turn the game around before the finale.

[Norrette]

This "problem" only seems to occur at the Proms. For newcomers I suggest:

1. Buy a programme and count the movements.
2. If you're still nervous, don't applaud until after everyone else starts clapping.

...and at the end, wait till the conductor turns around

[Richard Tarleton]

it's not intended as a precise analogy.

Like Pulcinella I only seem to go to concerts where, coincidentally or not, it isn't going to happen (mostly, see above). Like you, ff, this debate is of academic interest only to me, as I do not put myself in the way of it. I can't get to like it or ignore it. And audiences west of Offa's Dyke sound much like Pulcinella's in York. .

The analogy that springs to my mind, quite irrelevantly, is the debate about smoking in public places in the 1980s - the pro-clappers here remind me of those smokers who couldn't grasp that their "right" to smoke negated the preferences, rights, of those who didn't like breathing in other people's. Though the only danger to my health of inter-movement clapping is to my blood pressure, so it's not really comparable, before anyone tells me.

[Pianoman]

It's never bothered me at concerts - at least WAY less than idiots on the mobile phones...

I have to say that the clapping of the 'big' numbers in opera always annoyed me; I know it's a sort of tradition in Italy etc. but it's as infuriating as, say, clapping a big soliloquy in a Shakespeare production (maybe that goes on too...?). Anyway, that's why latterly I only went to through-composed operas - though even here I remember someone behind me starting to clap in the brief silence after the big one-note crescendo in Wozzeck...

[Norrette]

Just received an email from RAH encouraging me to book tables in the various bars & cafes. They clearly did not read my emails last year about the extortionate prices - £24 for a bottle of, well, plonk! .

A sandwich and a glass from home in a plastic bottle, seated under Albert this year, I think.

[Richard Barrett]

As I understand it, people who conceive of, say, a symphony as a single work with sections which interrelate as part of a composer's overall design find the extraneous noise (and, to be fair, that does include outbreaks of inter-movement coughing too) destroys any sense that it is a single work rather than a certain number of short works, and very distracting as it disturbs their concentration in following the compositional threads.

I would have thought that if one is a sufficiently sophisticated listener to comprehend the unity of a symphony across its different movements, one is also a sufficiently sophisticated listener for a few extraneous noises not to impinge on that comprehension. I'm not advocating applause between movements, I'm saying that making a big deal out of it is what strikes me as "unnecessary". Every day in every kind of situation people do things that annoy me, or that would do if I let them!

[Beef Oven!]

I would have thought that if one is a sufficiently sophisticated listener to comprehend the unity of a symphony across its different movements, one is also a sufficiently sophisticated listener for a few extraneous noises not to impinge on that comprehension. I'm not advocating applause between movements, I'm saying that making a big deal out of it is what strikes me as "unnecessary".

It's never about what it's about.......

[ahinton]

This often gets mentioned in such discussions as if Simpson's was a wise, profound insight and the last word on the matter - whereas it's actually a feebly thought-through statement. We cannot read Chaucer or Shakespeare as their contemporaries would have done because we've read Beckett - that doesn't mean we have versions of Chaucer or Shakespeare in modern English and think them somehow preferable to the originals. We can't look at paintings by Rembrandt or Giotto as their contemporaries would have done, because we've seen Francis Bacon - that doesn't mean we use acrylics or emulsion when those earlier paintings need restoration.

No - Chopin never lived to hear the Moog Synthesizer, so we don't know what he might have felt about having his Music played on one (or what Rembrandt might have felt about Acrylics - or felt tipped pens for that matter). But we DO know that he could not possibly have conceived of the Music that he wrote on instruments that didn't exist at the time he wrote it - and, if (big "if" for some people more than others) we respect the composers' aural and timbral imaginations, then we cannot but wish to hear their Music played on the instruments that we know they did have experience of.

I accept that Simpsons's comment was a statement of the obvious but seems to have been intended for those who either might have thought otherwise or might not have thought about it at all.

My point re Chopin, Liszt and Alkan was of twofold intent; firstly I find it hard to shake off the thought that each of them wrote for instruments that they might have liked to be developed in the future and this is indeed what happened to pianos in the mid- to late-9th century, doubtless encouraged in part by the increasing demands of their work and, secondly, Chopin didn't live to experience the Steinways, Bösendorfers and others of the latter 19th century whereas his close contmporaries Liszt and Alkan did. Likewise, Chopin might never have thought that his piano music would get performed before audiences of 2,000+ in buildings so vast that on of his Érards would be rather lost in them. All that said, pianists still play the works of Chopin and Liszt today (and increasingly those of Alkan as well).

There is the additional factor of a composer changing his/her mind; no one would argue that Arrau felt that he had good reason to record Schubert as a young pianist, as a middle-aged one and as a old one, but some seem to consider too many aspects of a composer's thinking as sacrosanct, set in stone and unamenable to revision (which, when one thinks of the plethora of composers' revisions of their own works, doesn't hold water). I've often wondered about this is respect of composers such as Saint-Saëns and Strauss, whose music spanned almost 80 years, Ornstein, whose music slightly exceeded that and, above all, Carter, whose creative career spanned almost 90 years; with all the societal and other changes - as well as musical ones - during such long spans, one coule perhaps wonder how their latter-day thoughts about their much earlier music might have undergone some changes.

But to return to your remark that "we DO know that he could not possibly have conceived of the Music that he wrote on instruments that didn't exist at the time he wrote it"; can we be so very certain of that? Whilst I'm not for one moment going to the other extreme and suggesting that Chopin, Liszt and Alkan thought to themselves "if I keep writing like this and making ever greater demands upon players and instruments, manufacturers will likely improve their instruments so as to enable them to rise to those challenges" but, when I look, for example, at the original version of Liszt's Transcendental Studies, Chopin's Op. 10 Études, Liszt's Sonata and Alkan's Grande Sonate & Op. 35 / 39 Études - all composed within three decades or so from around 1830-1860 - it seems less than unreasonable to speculate, however idly, as to what might have lain behind the ways in which these were written...

Sorry about earlier typos, now hopefully all duly corrected!...

[ahinton]

What about the sound of one hand clapping between movements (sorry if this one's already been done, but...)...

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

"because it's annoying" - translate : I, Alpensifonie, find it annoying.

"and unnecessary" - translate : I, Alpensinfonie, find it 'unnecessary'.

Definitions of 'necessary' and 'unnecessary' to follow if necessary.


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Attack the argument, not the person.