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audience

Concert etiquette. Yes, that old chestnut, doing the rounds again, getting bloggers, reviewers and audience members all hot under the collar….. To quote my friend and fellow blogger ‘Specs’: “audience behaviour seems to be such a ‘hot topic’ at the moment, it might as well be in a furnace balanced on a bonfire surrounded by lava. (And since that’s a fairly accurate description of being inside the Royal Albert Hall much of the time, perhaps the two are connected.)”

Aside from all the hand-wringing and eye-pulling on the subject of applause (when, how and why – of which more in a subsequent article), there is the question of general behaviour at concerts. Some people say that the etiquette of classical music – sitting quietly during the performance, trying not to disturb fellow concert-goers with coughing, turning the pages of the programme, or trying to silently opening blister packs of cough sweets (it’s impossible, I know) – is what makes classical music elitist, but the same etiquette is expected of theatre- or cinema-goers.

When we go to a live concert, we choose to do so in the knowledge that we will be sharing the auditorium with other people. These other people are, en masse, known as the audience, and without them there would be no concerts. Audiences are human – living, breathing, moving, sentient human beings – and when you go to a concert and become part of the audience, you accept that you are going to be surrounded by people who might move, or make a very small noise or tiny disturbance…… The vast majority of us who attend concerts do so with a sense of courtesy towards our fellow concert-goers and we enjoy the experience of sharing this wonderful music with other people in the special space that is the concert hall.

Sadly, a minority of concert goers seem to have a problem with this….. I was upset to read a post by a Facebook/blogging acquaintance who reported that during a concert at the Edinburgh Festival he moved slightly to cross his legs and was promptly punched on the shoulder by the person sitting behind him and ordered to “stop moving around, you fool!“. That the concert-goer reacted so aggressively to what I am sure was a very slight movement on the part of my acquaintance is disturbing in itself; that it happened at a classical concert, that art form where one expects civilised, courteous behaviour, is really quite shocking. Unfortunately, this is not the first incident of this kind I have encountered. Some months ago at a concert at the Wigmore Hall, I witnessed a man some rows in front of me smartly whack the couple in front of him with his programme because they were being just a little bit smoochy. It happened not once but twice during the evening and it was an unnecessary and overly aggressive reaction, in my humble opinion.

Concert venues do their absolute best to ensure the experience is pleasant for everyone. There are regular reminders to switch off your mobile phone and other electrical devices which might disturb the concert (watch alarms for example), to stifle coughing as far as possible (the Wigmore sensibly sells cough sweets at the desk in the foyer and most venues will allow you to take a bottle of water into the auditorium) and to be tolerant of other concert-goers. I am not overly troubled by coughing, nor am I especially bothered by the whole “applause between movements” business. But talking during the performance is a big No No for me – it’s discourteous to other concert-goers and disrespectful to the musicians – as is checking your Facebook timeline on your smartphone. And crowd-surfing is not recommended either….. (see below)

It seems to me that some concert goers would prefer to have a private concert, just them and the musicians, without the bother of tiresome other people and their irritating natural human attributes. To which I say, if that’s how to you want to experience music, I suggest you stay at home and listen on the radio or on disc in the quiet privacy of your own home.

Good behaviour at concerts was inculcated in me from a very young age. My parents took me to many classical concerts when I was a little girl – mostly at the old Birmingham Town Hall – and I learnt to sit quietly during the performance and to stifle my yawns: my mother used to tell me that yawning was very rude as “the musicians might notice and think you are bored!“. Having now been on the other side, so to speak, as a performer, I can safely say that when one is involved in the business of performing, one doesn’t really notice the audience that much (I doubt you could spot someone yawning in the audience from the stage of the Birmingham Town Hall!), but it also helps if you can sense the audience are still alive and engaging with the performance. I love that collective sigh that one hears just before the applause comes, or the sense of people listening incredibly intently, the atmosphere so thick, so powerful you could almost reach out and touch it.

Further reading:

Clapped Out

Getting Rid of Claptrap

How to Save Classical Music according to Stephen Hough

Scientist Kicked out of Classical Concert for Trying To Crowd Surf

 

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Last weekend I gave a concert in a church in Chiswick. The audience was small, but they listened attentively and seemed genuinely engaged by the music. All except one person (someone who is connected to me through marriage – but not, I hasten to add, my husband!) , who talked throughout the entire performance. This was extremely discourteous, not only to me but also to the other members of the audience. Luckily, it didn’t put me off my playing, but I was aware of the talking during the quieter passages of my programme.

Extraneous noise at concerts – coughing, unwrapping sweets, rustling programmes, whistling hearing aids, talking – is the bane of the performer, and the concert-goer. In her latest book Sleeping in Temples, pianist and writer Susan Tomes devotes a whole chapter to the subject of coughing and audience noise in general (she wittily calls the chapter ‘Bullfrogs’) and the blogosphere was alive with exclamations and hand-wringing not long ago when violinist Kyung Wah Chung berated the parents of a young child who coughed during her recent concert at London’s Southbank Centre.

The popularity of smartphones has added another irritant to concerts – people taking photographs, filming and texting during the performance: a couple of years ago, I watched most of the second half of a concert by Yuja Wang through the video app of someone’s iPhone. The illuminated screen can be disturbing to other concert-goers, and if you are texting or browsing the internet during a performance, it suggests you are not concentrating fully on the music, which is just plain discourteous to the musicians who have spent hours upon unpaid hours in rehearsal to bring this wonderful music to you.

A curious dichotomy exists in the world of live classical music concerts. Tradition and concert etiquette dictate that we sit in hushed reverence during the performance, stifle coughing and generally attempt to be extremely quiet. This enables us to concentrate on the music and avoids unnecessary distractions for the performers. Yet, as John Cage proved in his work 4’33”, in a concert hall there is no such thing as “absolute silence” – for people are living, breathing, moving….. For performers, the sound of the audience can be extremely helpful, and most of us who perform actively enjoy the sound of the audience listening and engaging with the music (I also really like that “collective sigh” that seems to come at the end of a fine performance, before the applause, almost like a giant cat uncurling and stretching). It undoubtedly adds to the excitement of a live performance and reminds us that the music we play is intended to be shared with others. I love being at, or giving a concert where one has a strong sense of the the audience listening very carefully, that sense of combined concentration.

Of course, people can’t help coughing (go to a concert in London in the winter, and there is often a veritable cacophony of raucous coughing and nose-blowing), or moving in their seats, or turning the pages of the programme, but whispering and talking, tapping away or filming on a smartphone, or fidgeting is just plain rude in my opinion.

Returning to the badly behaved talker at my concert, my page-turner, who also noticed it, told me afterwards that when not concentrating on the music, she fixed the person in question with a basilisk stare.

Audiences behaving badly

Susan Tomes on the subject of coughing

Coughing and the Art of Concert Etiquette

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A standing ovation is a form of applause where members of a seated audience stand up while applauding after extraordinary performances of particularly high acclaim. In Ancient Rome returning military commanders (such as Marcus Licinius Crassus after his defeat of Spartacus) whose victories did not quite meet the requirements of a triumph but which were still praiseworthy were celebrated with an ovation instead, from the Latin ovo, “I rejoice”. The word’s use in English to refer to sustained applause dates from at least 1831 (source: Wikipedia)

In a recent article, the theatre critic of The Telegraph laments the fact that the standing ovation, an import (he says) from Broadway, has become an all too common and unpleasant feature in London theatres and concert halls. For my part, I found the critic’s argument to be unnecessarily curmudgeonly, in which he claims that the increasing trend of standing up no matter how good or bad the performance is a form of narcissism on the part of the audience, akin to the mass (and crass) exaggerated display of public grief following the death of Diana, Princess of Wales.

I beg to differ. First, if the Wikipedia definition is to be believed, the standing ovation is not an American construct, but has an ancient provenance, as does the giving of applause. Secondly, I do not think the spontaneous reaction to a play, opera or concert is as considered as the author of the article claims: are people really thinking “I’ll stand up now so everyone around me can see how much I enjoyed this performance”? I’m not sure….. I agree with the author that the standing ovation does seem to have become more common in British venues (I never go to the theatre, so I cannot comment on this specifically), but personally I don’t have a problem with that – because you don’t have to stand up if you don’t want to! As regular readers of this blog know, I am a voracious concert goer (and someone with a fascination for “audience behaviour” at concerts), but the standing ovation still seems pretty rare in London venues that I frequent (I am trying, and failing, to recall the last time I stood to applaud at Wigmore Hall). We applaud to show our appreciation of the performance and performer/s; we stand, while continuing to applaud, to amplify our appreciation and to celebrate what we have just heard/seen. At a recent concert by Paul Badura-Skoda, the standing ovation came almost before the final note of Schubert’s last sonata ceased to resonate around the hall (St John’s Smith Square). No matter that there were quite obvious errors in most of the pieces Badura-Skoda performed, we were celebrating the fact that at 83 he was still performing and obviously thoroughly enjoying himself. And throughout his performance he exuded such warmth, wit and pleasure, and created such a wonderful intimacy in the big space of St John’s Smith Square, we felt bound to show gratitude for all of this (and I am not alone in feeling this).

At my first visit to the opera in over 15 years, for the world premiere of Julian Anderson’s Thebans at ENO, my companion and I were surprised when, as the cast took their curtain calls, the audience did not rise to its feet. “Isn’t that what you do at the opera?” my friend remarked. But given the narrative – a story of violence, murder, incest and political plotting – perhaps the audience felt a standing ovation was inappropriate, despite fine performances by the cast and orchestra (it will be interesting to see how the audience reacts at the first night of The Pearl Fishers, also at ENO, in June). And that’s something else that interests me – how a collective feeling can quickly sweep through an audience (in the way it does with football fans who suddenly seem to be singing You’ll Never Walk Alone or You’re Scum and You Know You Are! in tune) causing people to stand up to applaud, or not. It is this collective impulse, impelled by some unseen force, which suggests that the mass ovation is not necessarily a premeditated or narcissistic act, as the Telegraph critic claims. (Much has been written on crowd psychology – and indeed on why people cough at concerts…..)

A reviewing colleague on Facebook made an interesting point in response to my link to the Telegraph article – that at political party conferences and rallies the standing ovation has become de rigeur, regardless of the quality or content of the speeches. And here I would agree with the Telegraph critic: these ovations are very obvious toadying to one’s party leader, rather than any sincere display of commitment or belief.

Perhaps the most amusing incidence of the standing ovation – and one which has become ingrained in our concert culture – is the collective rising to one’s feet during the ‘Hallelujah’ chorus from Handel’s Messiah, a tradition which stems from one of the first performances of the work when King George II mistook the chorus for the national anthem. In keeping with royal protocol, the audience had to stand during the chorus too.

(picture source: Teton Music Blog)