Applause between movements

Terry Teachout chimed in yesterday on one of those low-level debates which never seems to get resolved one way or the other: whether it's a good or a bad thing to applaud an orchestra between the movements of a concerto or symphony. Teachout finds a 1959 interview with maestro Pierre Monteux to bolster his case, which is that such applause is "the most natural thing" and that anybody who sneers at it is a "spine-starched prig".

I'm not sure if Teachout realised, but his comment came less than a week after a minor fiasco at the Sydney Symphony. The piece in question was Tchaikovsky's Pathétique, which I'm sure has received more applause between movements than any other symphony ever. (It's got four movements, but the third is the one which ends with huge bangs and crashes.)

Sydney's conductor on that Thursday was Alexander Lazarev, who is firmly in the no-applause camp. When the audience started clapping after the first movement, "he asked the musicians to return the applause, mocking the ignoramuses in the audience," according to a report on the web. The audience had no idea they were being mocked, of course, and when the inevitable thunderous reception greeted the third-movement finale, things got rather out of hand. Lazarev, very pissed off at this point, asked the orchestra to stand up, and some members of the audience took their coats and left, thinking it was all over.

Now I'm sure that Teachout will think that Lazarev's behaviour was abominable, and I would agree with him. Conductors are, of course, within their rights to get angry at rude audiences who let cellphones ring, talk over the music, or decide to leave their mid-row seat in the middle of the performance. Simon Rattle once stopped in the middle of a New York concert to berate noisy concertgoers, earning himself the heartfelt thanks of most present. But ultimately it's the audience which is paying the conductor, and the maestro should not sneer in public at the lack of sophistication of his patrons.

Besides, as Teachout and Monteux point out, it's not only hicks who like to applaud between movements. An increasing number of sophisticated classical music lovers are coming around to their way of thinking, and while standard advice is still to keep schtum, some pretty high-profile symphonies seem fine with the practice.

Certainly, it's easy to think of times when applause would be both warranted and harmless. Teachout uses the image of "obviously excited concertgoers shamefacedly sitting on their hands," while, in the best article I could find on the subject, Stephen Johnson, in the Guardian, cites the end of Mars, the first movement in Holst's Planets suite, during a CBSO performance at the Proms.

Johnson immediately notes, however, that the audience, emboldened by their applause of Mars, felt that once they'd started they couldn't stop, and went on to clap at the end of the second movement, Venus, as well. Venus is a slow and quiet movement, and anybody who was genuinely responding to the performance would have kept their hands by their sides. This is the problem with being too all-inclusive: it inevitably results in the same kind of grade inflation which gives virtually every Broadway show receiving a standing ovation every night. People might start off clapping between movements because the performance demands it, but it takes no time at all before they feel obliged to applaud every movement, whether they liked it or not.

I'm sure that neither Teachout nor Monteux wants a world where there are six breaks for applause during a single performance of the Planets, or, to use Johnson's example, where the conductor has to stop and wait for the clapping to die down 12 times during a single operatic act. Audiences these days can't be trusted only to applaud the good stuff: give them half a chance and they'll cheer the downright mediocre as well. And there's no doubt that too much applause in the middle of a symphony, opera or concerto can definitely break up its drive and flow.

Besides, if people get the idea that it's fine to clap at the end of movements, they'll start clapping at every false ending as well, with disastrous consequences. I'm having visions here of people bursting out enthusiastically half a dozen times within ten minutes at the end of a Haydn symphony: something I'm sure no one thinks is a very good idea.

If asked, then, I'll continue to tell novices to classical music that, in general, one doesn't applaud until the end of the whole piece – and even then, one stays still until either everybody's applauding or the conductor lowers his arms. I won't get annoyed with them if they don't follow my advice, but the fewer people clapping, the more quickly the conductor can get on with playing the music, and the less disruptive the applause is.

On top of all that, of course, there's also the question of respect for your fellow concert-goers, the majority of whom still subscribe to the notion that applause between movements is always wrong. They might be mistaken in their belief, but it's genuinely and firmly held, and you should know that they will be annoyed at you if you clap. It's a bit like splitting infinitives in a newspaper: while you're more than welcome to go ahead and split away, you should be aware that there's a lot of Bufton Tuftons out there who will start fulminating at how ungrammatical you are, and there's no particular reason to gratuitously aggravate them.

So yes, if there's a particularly fabulous aria or movement, and other people are already clapping, and I know I'm not going to make a habit of it, and the mood takes me, then I'll join in the applause. And I'll always clap at the end of a performance: I vividly recall being completely flummoxed once after a long ovation following a concert of Rachmaninov's Vespers, when the woman to my left turned to me, disgusted, and said that no one should have clapped, because it's a religious piece. It's certainly possible to be too high-minded, and I do disapprove of such an exclusive and unhelpful attitude. Equally, however, I don't think that encouraging more intra-performance applause at concerts is a very good idea.

Posted by Felix at 16:33 EST

Comments

Applause is such an ugly noise too, unmelodious and completely destructive of whatever mood is generated by the music. But I reserve my unmitigated disdain for clapping along with the music. Does the conductor need help? If not, then why?

Posted by: Stefan Geens at 23:17 EST, October 20, 2003

I'm in the no-clapping camp, only because I like to get on with it, hear the music and stop wasting time. Go to a dance performance and there will be clapping all over the place (understandably the dancers need more breaks) but let's move it along. Also, waiting to clap until the end builds up enthusiasm/tension in the audience and makes it more pleasurable for the audience and the orchestra. Otherwise the audience is simply over-doing it and dumbing down the experience.

Posted by: Michelle at 11:04 EST, October 23, 2003

Please turn your mobile phone off, please don't applaud at the end of individual movements, applause at the end is appreciated.
A message that needs to get through to concert goers. I fear that we are getting so used to listening to bits of music, on radio, in the car, etc that the feeling for the whole is getting lost.
Erika

Posted by: erika at 5:16 EST, October 25, 2003

I think the venue has something to do with the clapping being acceptable.
Outdoors in Central Park, Ok, less so at the Concert Hall.

Posted by: sy klopps at 9:56 EST, October 28, 2003

On the other hand, there *is* an operatic tradition of applauding at the end of particularly beautiful individual arias, for the performer herself. Claqueurs as such don't arise until the 1830s, but the tradition goes back much earlier; the earliest attestation of which I am aware is in the period of Handel's Italian operas.

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