Applause between movements: when is it right, when is it wrong?

Cafe Society
1

At the symphony last night the programme included three works with more than four movements.
[ul]
[li]Capriccio Espagnol op. 34, Rimsky-Korsakov[/li][li]Symphonie Espagnole op. 21, Lalo[/li][li]El Sombre des tres picos: Suite 1 & 2, De Falla[/li][/ul]

The featured violinist for Symphonie Espagnole was Karen Gomyo. She was a model of beauty under control - so poised, so focussed, and so flawless. The orchestra was *on[/], and the music was passionate, dramatic, and at times devastatingly powerful.

And yet, no applause between the movements. In particular, the Intermezzo of Symphony Espagnole ended with an accellerando to climax that almost brought me to my feet - and would have except no one else stirred.

In the awkward silence, the violinist tuned up a bit, exchanged quizzical glances with the conductor, then went on to the next movement. Of course “awkward” and “quizzical” are my takes on the silence and the glances.

At the end, the audience (myself included) immediately lept to our feet - none of this polite applause, looking around to see if anyone else is standing, then eventually a standing ovation. This was boom, thunderous. I’m sure the orchestra and the violinist knew the audience was waiting until the very end, but if was you wouldn’t it bug you?

Now, I’ve seen me a symphony or two in my time. I’ve never seen this before. Sure, if an adagio ends on a whisper it seems rude to even cough. In that case I understand why no one applauds. Or perhaps, occassionally, in a three movement piece without a featured artist. But it has been my experience that applause between movements is otherwise normal.

Did I miss something?

Have any of you been in a position of giving a stirring performance then heard nothing but crickets from the audience?

2

It is NEVER right. It is always wrong. Applause between the movements distracts the performers and interferes with the flow of the piece.
My credentials: I have sung in several major symphony choruses over a period of 30-some years.

3

Well, if you’re at home, listening on CD, you can do whatever you want. :slight_smile:

4

It is nearly always wrong. However, I have seen it in exceptional circumstance: Once Itzack Perlman broke a string, and he played the rest of the first movement of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto . . .

. . . after borrowing a violin from the concertmaster. His rendition was brilliant, especially considering that he was using an unfamiliar instrument. After he finished the movment, the audience broke into applause (as his violin was returned to him with the string replaced).

(This non-Urban Legend happened at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center in August of 1990.)

5

It’s never “supposed” to be done; I’m not sure where you saw your other symphonies where it did happen. I’m sure the performers at the concert you went to didn’t expect any applause. I’ve seen polite reminders printed in concert programs reminding audiences that they’re not supposed to clap between movements.

Personally, I hate this rule. If classical music wants to attract younger/more diverse audiences, they’re going to have to take some of the starch out of the concert-going experience, and that includes letting people react when something really moves them. I’m not talking whooping or hollering in the middle of a piece whenever you feel like it. But it’s always seemed ludicrous to me that an audience should sit through an incredibly rousing third movement and just sit there with our heads up our asses pretending nothing just happened.

If I had slightly bigger balls and went to the symphony more often, I think I’d try to counter the trend and just start applauding anyways.

6

Perhaps my recollection is based on having seen more one-movement pieces than multi-movement pieces. I’m going to have to find old programmes. I just don’t ever recall an audience staying silent after a featured performer hits that last high note. Or maybe audiences I’ve been in have been occassionally guilty of a boorish inter-piece burst of applause.

I’m trying to remember which performances had more than three or four movements. The last I’m sure of was Mozart’s Requiem. It is difficult for me to recall details of this performance because it was sooooo moving my eyes were blurred most of the time. I was sure, though, that at least once or twice throughout there was applause.

I’m almost certain, the time I saw Beethoven’s Fifth, that there was applause after the first movement.

7

During our concerts, at Roy Thompson Hall, our choir director would always mark down in the program where and when applause would be appropriate. It seemed like the best compromise to me.

8

I dislike people who say it’s “always wrong”.

However, I hate people who do it, particularly from a perspective as a performer…because it’s a huge distraction. Playing a single work of several movements is a single span of concentration, and applause between movements breaks that.
The worst case I’ve seen (being in the audience!) was the St Petersburg Philharmonic, playing Tchaikovsky’s sixth symphony. Which has a rousing and triumphal (if slightly ambiguous & hollow) third movement, famously followed by a heart-felt slow movement to conclude the piece. The playing of the third movement was astonishing, and half-a-dozen people broke out into applause and cheers as the last chord sounded. However, the conductor had intended to go straight into the last movement with a minimal gap, and so this applause drowned out several bars.
I also hate applause from opera audiences after every aria. Fine in Handel, where he was expecting it and the music allows for it, but don’t start clapping and cheering just because the fat lady’s sung when the dramatic pace of the music is continuing.

9

Actually, that’s the exact movement I was thinking of when I was talking about rousing movements that you just have to react to…

Frankly, I’d be more concerned about attracting a larger audience that claps, even if it does distract the performers, than a smaller audience that doesn’t clap. I was a performer in college, and maybe I was just a crappy performer, but I found the dead silence a bit unnerving.

Maybe I’m overemphasizing the degree to which the no-clapping rule keeps away a younger audience. If classical music really felt less classy (allowing more applause, loosening dress codes, lower ticket prices, whatever) would it actually attract more young people (and more middle class people of all ages), or is it already so irrelevant that anybody who’s interested in it has already found it?

10

Tinkering with elements of etiquette is regularly experimented with, and by itself has little effect on attendances by young people. Lower ticket prices? Perhaps, although I find a useful comparison is with a cinema ticket in the same locality, and most classical concert compare reasonably well. As for ‘dress codes’, I presume you mean what’s worn by performers, and again this has been tried before with no notable result.

11

That’s great, and wish it were done everywhere. It’s fine that new people attend concerts, but as they don’t know about the custom, they often clap, and then feel a bit sheepish (I expect) when they realize only a handful of people are doing it. From then on, it is not done.

The idea that the custom should be relaxed to encourage greater attendance may apply somewhere, but over the past few years, most of the concerts we’ve atended have been sold out. Interest in classical music has grown a great deal in the last few decades.

If it were just a custom, it would not be important, but as some muscians have noted, it is a matter of concern to them to have applause interupt their concentration when not expected.

Therefore, I don’t understand why the proper protocol is not commonly explained on the programs.

12

When I used to perform, I felt a little cheated if the audience applauded between movements or before the conductor dropped his or her hands. For me, that moment of silence was the one split-second moment when I could evaluate our performance as a whole (rather than concentrating on each individual note or phrase). When people applaud too early, I always had the nagging fear that they weren’t paying attention and that the applause was some sort of conditioned response to the musicians stopping.

When I’m deeply moved by music I’m hearing others perform, that silence is like a taking a deep breath to take it all in. In fact, the more powerful the performance, the longer I’ll want the silence to last.