BQOD

08. October 2008 · 2 comments · Categories: BQOD

I’m firmly convinced that most of the people in my generation and younger have far too little experience attending classy performances. This was confirmed by the loud whispering going on behind me throughout the performance, as well as the clapping between movements instead of waiting until the entire song was completed.

2 Comments

  1. Mike
    October 8, 2008 at 9:22 am

    I didn’t grow up going to the symphony, or recitals, or anything like that. When I got to college and started attending friends’ recitals, I learned very quickly that clapping between movements was frowned upon.

    Lately, though, I hear more and more people who say “what’s the big deal? Let audiences clap when they feel moved to clap.” I think I agree.

    As for the loud whispering, well, there’s no excuse for that. But when I saw Eugene Onegin (at the evening dress rehearsal) the middle section of the main floor was filled with people (whose native language was Russian, for whatever that may be worth) who used every applause break as an opportunity to speak to each other in incredibly loud voices. And their conversations were invariably longer than the applause. So bad behavior appears to be universal, unfortunately.

  2. racheloboes
    October 16, 2008 at 11:56 am

    I’m usually pretty against clapping between movements, but our orchestra concert on Tuesday made me think about it a bit. We played Tchaik’s Piano concerto with our (student) concerto competition winner, and after the first movement about half of the audience broke into spontaneous applause- it was our gala opening concert with really expensive non student tickets, and these were pretty much all people who know better, music students and longstanding patrons.

    I felt a little bad for the pianist, but at the same time, it was a really natural thing to do, and completly meant as praise.

    But, you know, I’m not sure how the pianist felt about it.