Proms 2018

[cloughie]

It's OK. It would have happened anyway. One of the pro-clapping fraternity tried to start it after the First Night concert.

...and I was the anti-clapping stooge that rose to that bait. Always happens, every Prom season - nobody yields an inch and the music goes on...

[Beef Oven!]

It's OK. It would have happened anyway. One of the pro-clapping fraternity tried to start it after the First Night concert.

All Bryn said that it was good that the individual movements of Holst's Planets were getting the applause they deserve - since then the superannuated traditionalist conservatives haven't stopped and have been going at it like the clappers!

[Bryn]

But presumably this doesn't apply to the clappers?

Well no, because they show no intolerance to rein in. They are happy to let those who do not wish to clap, stay sitting on their hands. They already "live and let live".

[Bryn]

All Bryn said that it was good that the individual movements of Holst's Planets were getting the applause they deserve - since then the superannuated traditionalist conservatives haven't stopped and have been going at it like the clappers!

Oh, come on Beefy. You and I both know I was being deliberately provocative. I just wanted to get the positive side in first, for once.

[teamsaint]

aaah yes, this one again
How dare a mere musician express a view when they are merely the servant of those who pay their wages ?

How dare listeners express a view, when pearls of wisdom have been dispensed from above ?

[french frank]

Oh, come on Beefy. You and I both know I was being deliberately provocative. I just wanted to get the positive side in first, for once.

Well no, because they show no intolerance to rein in. They are happy to let those who do not wish to clap, stay sitting on their hands. They already "live and let live".

Haha! less about spades, I see, Bryn, as about wooden spoons Your allies don't seem to demonstrate much tolerance, nor do they rein in their insults

[MrGongGong]

How dare listeners express a view, when pearls of wisdom have been dispensed from above ?

Does it not occur to you that she might actually know what she is talking about ?

[VodkaDilc]

A word of praise for the RAH Box Office. I reluctantly decided that tomorrow is going to be too hot for a long journey and a stifling Prom. I rang the Box Office anticipating that this concert would not be sold out and that there would be no alternative to wasting the price of my ticket. What I had not realised is that they will exchange tickets, right up to the afternoon of the concert. I now have a ticket for a late night Prom on a date when I'm already going to the earlier one.

All unexpectedly simple - and dealt with efficiently and cheerfully by the Box Office staff. Perhaps it's a sign of the times that I'm surprised by the whole business.

[teamsaint]

Does it not occur to you that she might actually know what she is talking about ?

It did occur to me, obviously. But I still think she got it wrong.

I try not to be rude to other stakeholders, in my work life. Seems to work pretty well.

[Beef Oven!]

Oh, come on Beefy. You and I both know I was being deliberately provocative. I just wanted to get the positive side in first, for once.

[Beef Oven!]

Your allies don't seem to demonstrate much tolerance, nor do they rein in their insults

I did not mean superannuated, traditionalist conservatives in the pejorative sense

[french frank]

I did not mean superannuated, traditionalist conservatives in the pejorative sense

Where's ya spade, Beefy?

[MrGongGong]

It did occur to me, obviously. But I still think she got it wrong.

I try not to be rude to other stakeholders, in my work life. Seems to work pretty well.

I always think of this when I hear that phrase

[Beef Oven!]

Where's ya spade, Beefy?

Next to my spoon. Where else?

[french frank]

Just looking at the three quotes that Gongers drew out from the Chi-chi Nwanoku piece. I don't think that any of them show the particular insight of a musician. In the first her family and friends are members of the audience, so say put off by the opposition to clapping between movements. As a professional musician, could she not have explained to them why there was 'overwhelming support' - or, even as a professional musician does she not have the faintest notion? Rather than discuss it with them she dismisses these audience members as "snooty". It's scarcely believable that she allowed 'many' of her family and friends to be put off going to concerts because they weren't allowed to clap between movements.

Two years ago, a BBC podcast on the Proms found overwhelming opposition to clapping between movements. This snootiness is probably the main reason why many of my family and close friends simply stopped coming to concerts: they were made to feel alienated, or that they had committed a cardinal sin by spontaneously and genuinely bursting into applause at the end of a passage they loved.

Again, there's no particularly musicianly insight in dragging out the 'they didn't behave like that in Mozart's day' chestnut. Times change. People made money out of slaving in Mozart's day. Or the aristocracy employed composers in their households, to return to a musical example.

So many senior figures in classical music say they want to attract more people from diverse backgrounds. Yet the attitude that concertgoers must be educated to behave in a traditional manner is getting in the way. In fact, it’s actually ignorant to suggest pin-drop silence between movements is “traditional”: revered composers such as Mozart, Brahms and Tchaikovsky dined out on the amount of cheering and clapping they could elicit between movements.

She seems quite prepared to accept the half-hearted, polite clapping from a half-audience not fully wedded to the idea of clapping in the middle of a piece of music. Again, saying that as a musician she loves a lot of rapturous applause whenever it comes is simply stating her personal feelings of satisfaction, gratification rather than giving a musician's insight. Poorly chosen quotes. I hope she said something more convincing than that. This boils down to a bit of sef-justification or vested interest and shows no insight into the reasoning of the 'overwhelming' number of non clappers. Surprising that she had never come across others in her profession who took the opposite view.

In the end she's just taking one side against the other like any non-musician, and adding her bit of scorn for those who feel differently. Half hearted polite clapping may indicate that they didn't enjoy what they heard, rather than that they were an educated, sorry, "educated" audience showing they knew the piece had come to an end. Poor show.

It’s absolutely fantastic to be on the receiving end of rapturous and spontaneous applause, wherever it happens, and woefully depressing to hear half-hearted, polite clapping because the “educated” audience knows a piece has come to the end, regardless of whether they enjoyed it or not. Give me between-movement clapping any day. After all, people would not clap if they did not like what they saw and heard.