Does anything demonstrate just how out of touch, socially elitist and culturally irrelevant our industry is than the asinine, yet never-ending debate around the topic of when (and more importantly, when not) to applaud?
Image – Niklas Bildhauer, Wikimedia Commons.
If some of us can be accused of fretting over first-world problems, what is the level of privilege afforded to those occupying the ivory tower of etiquette, those self-appointed gatekeepers of the faux tradition, who can deem an entire evening ruined by the ingrate that dares bring their hands together in the primal form of appreciation at the wrong moment?
Welcome to the classical music concert: an institution built on the foundation of historical misinformation and social behaviour patterns, policed by an audience that demands total chastity and submission to their rulebook.
Let’s get this out of the way to begin with: you’re not clapping in the correct place if you think we need to wait till the end of a piece. Enough historical accounts exist from the 18th century onwards to show that audience members were expected to applaud between movements and even converse or dine...
It is ridiculous, this faux etiquette about clapping in classical concerts. I agree there needs to be a new Reformation – not to not clap but to clap when you want, and even stomp and cheer! Why not clap the soloist when they play an amazing cadenza in a concerto? Perhaps we should even go back to playing symphony movements with other pieces in between. I’ve seen programs from the times of Beethoven and Mozart in which this happened. I bet they clapped and probably cheered each movement then! Apart from all that, etiquette can be such a shallow, snobby, class thing that keeps classical concerts in that perception they are only for the so-called elite!