By |

“….the quality and general culture of audiences has diminished in equal measure……The average listener of today has hardly the faintest idea about what he is hearing. He neither knows anything about new music, nor can he differentiate between outstanding, moderately good and poor performances.”

Sir András Schiff, The Telegraph, 8 March

It’s not the first time I’ve found myself bridling at criticism of “the audience”. There have been a few occasions, mostly in music reviews, where the audience and its behaviour have been commented upon in less-than-complimentary terms. I feel offended because as a regular concert-goer I am part of “the audience”, and I will nearly always rush to defend it.

And why? Because there’s a very simple equation here: without an audience, the musician/s does not have a concert, nor a fee. He/she/they may be performing to a handful of people or a full house at Carnegie Hall, but the audience is a crucial part of the concert experience. Without an audience, you are just playing into the void (sadly, some musicians are finding this is a necessity as concert halls close due to the coronavirus outbreak, but that’s another story).

András Schiff’s comments revive – yet again! – that tedious old chestnut that you need specialist knowledge or a certain level of education to enjoy, or better still appreciate classical music. The truth is, you don’t. All you need are your ears and a willingness and curiosity to submit to the sounds, to the experience, the flow of the music and the emotions it provokes. There’s no right or wrong way to enjoy the experience, and there’s no test at the end of the concert to see if you “understood it”, no exam in musical analysis to check you know what Sonata Form is or the meaning of Allegro Amabile (“smile as you quickly play”). The majority of audience members are there not to show off their specialist knowledge, but because they enjoy the experience of live music. And in fact, contrary to what Schiff says, many audience members are highly discerning and really can spot whether a performance is truly inspiring or mediocre: they may not be able to express this in high falutin language but they can certainly sense it.

Performers like Schiff would do well to remember who is paying for the tickets to their concerts, for without those ticket buyers, those valuable (but, it would appear, not always valued) “bums on seats”, The Audience, there wouldn’t be the same opportunities to perform. This is especially true for less well-known musicians who are trying to make a living playing for local music societies and regional arts organisations, where the ability to pay the artist a fee is predicated almost entirely on ticket sales.

Patronising, arrogant attitudes towards audiences, and potential audiences, don’t really help an artform which is constantly trying to attract as wide an audience demographic as possible, and serve to reinforce the notion that classical music is “elitist”. If I was a newbie concert-goer reading Schiff’s comments, I think I might be tempted to head straight out of the concert hall, never to return.

Let’s stop behaving as if classical music is for the few, not the many; that it’s some kind of precious crystal that only a select minority can see and engage with. Instead, let’s endeavour to make everyone feel welcome, regardless of their credentials or knowledge.

Read Jon Jacob’s thoughts on this issue here

 

 

By |

We go to concerts for a variety of reasons: to be moved emotionally, to be entertained, and as a social event. There was a time, prior to the nineteenth century, when engaging with what is generally called “classical music” was a very convivial and highly social affair. Food and drink was consumed and people talked during performances – and even clapped between movements. In the formalisation of classical concerts, which occurred towards the latter part of the nineteenth century and still haunts some classical music venues today, we have rather lost sight of the more convivial aspects of concert-going, so concerned are we to conform to an unspoken concert etiquette.

I’ve been going to classical music concerts since I was a young child and I quickly learnt all about the etiquette of such occasions: for example, my mother would tell me not to yawn “in case the musicians see you and think you are bored!“, and I loved all the little rituals of concert-going – purchasing a programme beforehand, interval ice-cream eaten from a tub with a tiny wooden shovel, the plush decor of the concert hall, the special clothes the musicians wore, and many other details large and small of “the concert” as a special event and a memorable experience. Because concert-going was such a big part of my musical development as a child, I never questioned the etiquette or formality of the occasion, merely accepted it as part of the whole experience of classical music. As I’ve got older, I have become far less concerned about silly customs such as not applauding between movements, believing that if we want to encourage people to come and experience classical music, we need to make them feel comfortable in the concert hall, immune from the hard stares or loud “shushing” of people who want to sit in rigid silence throughout the performance.

Concert-going has always been a social affair, but until fairly recently the areas of the concert venue where socialising could take place were rather limited or not particularly attractive: a small overcrowded bar area and nowhere to sit is hardly welcoming. Fortunately, venues now recognise that socialising before, during and even after a concert is important for concert-goers and have responded by providing pleasant social areas where people can gather to chat and enjoy a pre-concert or interval drink and food. (London’s Royal Festival Hall, for example, has spacious social areas and large airy balconies over look the river.) And from a practical point of view, venues make money from F&Bs (“food and beverages): a single glass of house white at a leading London venue can cost as much as a decent bottle of Sauvignon in Tesco!

The social aspect of concert-going begins before one even arrives at the venue. There is the booking of tickets, organising dates with friends and perhaps getting a party of people together. The anticipation of the event can be very potent, especially if one is going to hear an artist or ensemble one particularly admires – and at a more basic level, going to a concert is a night out!

Before the concert, one might meet friends for supper or drinks. This can be an issue given the start times of concerts in the UK (usually 7.30pm), which means one has to eat around 6pm (rather too early for most adults). The British pianist Stephen Hough has written on the subject of concert start times and length and has suggested shorter, earlier concerts to give people a chance to eat afterwards, or concerts without intervals.

Meeting friends for pre-concert drinks gives one the chance to discuss and anticipate the programme, express one’s curiosity about the artist/s or excitement about hearing him/her/them again. Then the audience bell sounds and we are summoned to the auditorium to take our seats. The house lights dim, our signal to fall silent in anticipation of the performer’s arrival, and the adventure of the live performance begins.

I agree with Stephen Hough that intervals can be rather frustrating: one can spend most of the interval queuing for a drink at the bar (savvy concert-goers pre-order their interval drinks and some venues even have automatic ordering via a smartphone app) or for the ladies’ loo. Sometimes an interval can feel like an interruption to the flow of the performance, but we accept it as part of the concert format – and of course performers need to have a break too.

The social aspect of concerts is very important and should be encouraged and supported by the venues: classical music is something really wonderful to share! Concert-going is also about sharing passion with others: taking a friend who has not sampled a classical concert before can be a wonderfully enriching experience, but I am mindful of the fact that while I may feel very much at home at a classical music venue, my companion may not because of the real or imagined formality and special etiquette of the event, and so I feel it is important to make my companion feel as comfortable and welcome as possible. Fundamentally, it reminds us that the music was written to be shared with others.

 

 

By |

One of the secondary pleasures of going to live music in concert is “audience watching”. Different artists and repertoire attract different audiences (the music of Scriabin, for example, seems to attract a particularly ‘unusual’ audience…..). The ritual of concert going and the habits of audiences have fascinated and intrigued me since I was a young child when my parents took me to the Proms and concerts at Birmingham Town Hall (where the CBSO was based before Symphony Hall was built).

I love the very palpable sense of “collective listening”, that curious vibration in the concert hall when everyone is listening very intently, or when the musician/s creates a remarkably intense connection via his/her performance and the power of the music. At the end of a particularly concentrated performance, one senses the audience uncurling and flexing, like an animal, before exhaling a collective breath and applauding. At a recent lunchtime concert at my local music society, I was amused to observe the reactions of several members of the audience to some rather outré contemporary music which was being performed by a piano and percussion duo. The final piece in the programme, during which the performers alternated between throwing themselves onto the piano keyboard and clapping (including some quite intricate “Pat-a-Cake” clapping patterns), seemed particularly “challenging” for certain members of the audience. Some people shifted uncomfortably in their seats, presumably because they found the music unpleasant or difficult to understand. Another person rested his head on his left hand, feigning boredom or sleep; others lowered their heads or looked down at their laps in embarrassment. Luckily no one walked out, though I suspect a couple of people might have considered doing so. When the piece ended, some of the applause felt like relief, that this curious “musical” experience was over, though in general I felt the applause was given generously, as it always is at my local music society’s concerts.

scientist-crowd-surf
Crowd-surfing is generally not acceptable at a classical music concert…..

I think it’s important to be challenged by music and that listening should not necessarily always be a passive activity – though of course a concert can, and should, be a relaxing and enjoyable activity as well. I have experienced sidelong glances from other audience members when I have laughed at the wit of Haydn or Beethoven, or a certain gesture by a performer to highlight a moment of humour in the music. These days I quite regularly cry at concerts, overwhelmed by the music and the emotional experience of hearing it (a friend of mine believes I suffer from Stendhal Syndrome with this regard). Yet the etiquette of the concert hall, a mode of behaviour which developed at the end of the nineteenth century when concert going became more formal, and largely remains so today, can make people feel constrained, obliged to sit in rigid reverential silence for the duration of the performance. It is this etiquette which can also put people off attending classical concerts, and the unwelcoming attitude of some fellow concert-goers, and the conventions of the concert hall – how to behave, in particular when to applaud – can make concert-going a behavioural minefield for the ingenue concert-goer. There is a small contingent of audience members who wish to maintain these conventions and they manifest their antagonism to the more relaxed concert-goer by curious (mostly) passive aggressive behaviour including glaring at the person who accidentally drops their programme or loudly shushing others. Sometimes these are the same people who bellow “Bravo!” at the end of the concert, or start applauding almost before the final note has sounded. All of this behaviour would probably seem very alien to the likes of Mozart and Beethoven, and even Brahms and Tchaikovsky, who were used to a much more rowdy and noisily engaged audience. Somehow we need to find a middle way between the very formal behaviour which still dominates classical concert going and a more relaxed attitude akin to an earlier age which allows people to react spontaneously to what they hear, feel and experience……

640px-james_tissot_-_hush21
Hush! (The Concert) by James Tissot