I saw it via Charles Noble, and he saw it via arranger and violist Sam Bergman.
In this case, is not the oboe an instrument of self-torture, while the shawm was used in battle?
I recently landed at a blog that really dissed audience members for clapping between movements. I’ve read other blogs that do the same thing. (No links for now.) Some writers seem to think audience members who do that are idiots or uncouth. Some audience members are so nervous about applauding at the wrong time they don’t applaud at the end of a work, worried that somehow they’ve counted movements wrong or something. I was attending a chamber music concert where a group performed two works, and the audience didn’t applaud until after the second work, assuming it was all one piece. (Funny to think that, since the works were quite different!) After that, I sort of nominated myself as the a “lone claque” (can one be a “lone claque”? Seems not, but oh well!) for those concerts; someone needed to get some applause going!
And now I ran across this:
To Clap or Not to Clap
Our Masterworks concert last Friday caused quite a stir amongst us musicians. The audience applauded between each and every movement during the concert. They even made the review in the News Sentinel. This sparked a somewhat heated backstage debate on audience etiquette. Musician’s opinions on the subject fell on a wide spectrum from some really enjoying applause between movements to others who couldn’t stand it and felt the symphony should post signs instructing audiences to wait. Who knew applause could be so controversial?!
RTWT … it’s interesting!
