Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner How do you Feel about Applause?

You may not agree with anything I said but here we go.

Mark, thanks for that link! It doesn't matter what I or anyone else think. It's your thread. Have at it. You can have an argument later on in that thread if Kismet say so.


..and I don't think you're on the wrong track at all...

I closed a concert with the Liszt sonata, and after a brutal start, it was actually pretty successful. But there was a long pause between the last note and the applause (or it felt really long!). That was a really gratifying moment.

The weird thing about playing long pieces is that....well when I began the andante sostenuto coda, I just was sort of in disbelief...that 25 minutes had already passed. Sometimes the music just carries you away with it.

I wasn't really able to receive the applause though, I was so exhausted. I took a bow, then sat back down on the bench as another friend announced the end of the concert (it was not that formal). I had already played the Franck violin sonata, accompanied a flute piece, and after the Liszt I could barely stand... and was I ever in big trouble with some other engineering projects that were due a few days later!

I love the roar of applause at the end when it's appropriate, say Bruckner's 8th Symphony or something like that, but I must agree with you here. I remember the NY crowd exploding in a chorus of bravo's and whistles at the end of Mahler's 6th Symphony (NYP/Lorin Maazel)...and oh, that struck me so inappropriate and marred what was a truly great performance (and yes a terrifying performance).



Back in January 2012 I started playing recitals at retirement centers for a program called Music for Seniors. My first concert I "warmed up" with the Liszt Sonata, and I "cooled down" with the last movement of the Beethoven/Liszt 9th Symphony. before the andante sostenuto coda, right at the cut of or the big dominant 7th, they all started clapping. But one old man was either knowledgeable enough or perceptive enough, and shooshed every body by saying, "SHUT UP, HE'S NOT FINISHED!"

(Frank's Violin Sonata is such a great piece! I'll bet you were exhausted after that recital!)

Frank's Violin Sonata? Never heard of the guy.

Here is how the composer's name should be spelled along with a nice rendition of the piece:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIlPaqmcklk

The poster missed the "c" in Franck.

Polyphonist, it does appear that the word "um" is used also in one of your sentences . . . (oops, I did it too!)


M.

Hi Louis, the issue is that this being an academic subject it has little appeal as a news story. Best in the newspaper area would be to bring some music critics on board with it . . . but what are they, or is anyone else, supposed to do? I just don't understand what it is that you realistically expect to transpire as an outcome.

As with Ervin Nyiregyhazi, he received tremendous press in the 1970s and made recordings, yet in the professional music world what has changed as a result?

p.s. - With Nyiregyhazi, according to Raymond Lewenthal's recollections of hearing him perform in the 1940s, audiences would scream, shout, stomp their shoes on the ground, make waves around the halls, and in general behave as though they were audiences to American football games!


M.

Maybe it is addressed to a different Mark C.?


M.

I think this inter-movement applause is here to stay, along with standing ovations. Whaddayagonnado? Spell it out in the programs? It's bad enough when you have to put 'disable cellphones' in the program - my chorus had to do it and STILL, you'd hear at least one call per performance ring thru.

As it appears from your post, you think that reading a few books makes you better than the rest?

Guess again buddy!

The best thing is to build a Faraday cage into the construction of every concert and recital hall or temporarily wrap one around the building for performance dates. Then the cell phone issue is solved!


M.

I like to hear inter-movement applause because it shows the presence of some folks who are newer to classical music.

I'm not as keen on the constant standing ovations, though--especially when some people take the opportunity to stand up and slip out the door while applause is still ongoing.

But it doesn't at all. Lots of people who do that aren't new to it. I know, because I'm one.

In fact, there are an awful lot of times (and I'm sure a lot of people here will think they are indeed awful!) when I would want to applaud for a moment in the middle of a movement or piece. Of course I don't, but I'll sometimes do an applauding motion a few times without letting the hands meet.

No it doesn't make me any better than the rest, and for the record, as an empiricist, I research every single day. As I said in my original post, I have researched my thesis for 13 years.

So, when, independent of mine, other researchers who have spent most of their entire lives on this same subject, wholeheartedly endorse my thesis, then the least I expect is to be treated as an equal and not some crackpot.

Do you have any idea what your reception would be at any applied musicology conference if you showed up with Kreisler or Brendan as your source references? You would be laughed out of the hall.

At least Laguna Greg has multiple published journal articles and lectures to back up what he says. I go down the same road, in terms of citing sources, and I have to defend myself every step of the way.

The reason I cite these three books, is that 1) OUP doesn't publish junk, and 2) this the first time, anyone took years to comprehensively pull together all of the data that has gone before regarding romantic piano performance and then present it in a book format.

So, go out a find a music librarian anywhere who will not tell you that every pianist should have the books of Drs. Brown, Hamilton, and Peres Da Costa in their personal libraries. There is a reason for that, and that is the point!

Louis,

First of all I've no idea why the names of Kreisler and Brendan came up (certainly I didn't mention them). I, based on my own knowledge of music (and you can disregard anything you want about that) love the fact that these two are actually here and share even some of their time with us. I can't say the same thing about you though.

As for the rest of your post, I sense that while you are a lovely bookworm you also seem to lack any regard about peoples experience. Not to mention that you also seem to treat the forums some kind of academic court room, unlike most of us which treat it a bit like a pub, a bit like a great place to hang out with friends, a bit like a place to advertise a tiny bit, get some endorsement, help a little, get helped a little, etc...

And all this in a thread about applause... Brilliant! Really brilliant! Well done mate...

I'd also recommend Christopher Small's books, especially "Musicking", for a better understanding of the relationship between performers, audiences, and the musical experience.

I do agree with Nikolas that the forums are more like a pub than an academic courtroom. But then, most universities I've visited are more like pubs than academic courtrooms, and far too many university and conservatory students read far too little.

I think we regularly see that here on the forums - people who believe that their opinions are far more informed than they really are. (And no, I'm not gonna name names.)

I own probably 200 books I purchased while in school, and read twice that amount from libraries and journals. I know a lot of students who own maybe 10 books and barely skim articles once, much less re-read them in an effort to fully understand them. I still read, although not quite as much as I did back then. My latest reading includes David Byrne's "How Music Works", which covers many of the same issues, albeit from a different point of view. Kenneth Hamilton is also on the Kindle ready to go, and Matthew Guerrieri's "The First Four Notes" is up next.

Applause is good. I like it. Does that answer the question?

You warmed up the Liszt and closed off with the finale of the Beethoven-Liszt 9....that's crazy! YOU must have been exhausted! And that old man sounds pretty cool..haha. Thankfully both times I performed the Liszt, nobody clapped after that climactic moment...though the second time I fudged that last chord and had to cut the pedal really quickly!

And yeah, I was completely toast after that performance..I wasn't able to do any work until the next evening...not good because exams were coming up!

And yes the Franck sonata is a wonderful piece! It's one of my favourites and I'm so glad that I was able to perform it with one of my closest friends.

I wish it did!

This thread suffers from the fact that people are trying to cover a lot of different issues:

1) Personal preference when you like to applaud or receive applause

2) What the protocol for applause should be.

3) What the protocol for applause has been in the past.

4) Geographical/demographic differences in applause protocol.

5) The effect programming has on applause

My thoughts would be:

1) I like applauding people when they do well, even between movements. I like receiving applause, and it doesn't really bother me when people do it between movements.

2) I don't believe there should be a protocol, it's just one of those societal habits that forms organically. (And it should be allowed to form organically.)

3) It varies a great deal. (I think people used to applaud performers after cadenzas while the orchestra was still playing in the 18th/19th centuries - much like jazz solos nowadays. Podesta would know more than I about the specifics.)

4) I've lived most of my life in the midwest where audiences are very generous with applause and standing ovations. I think that's fine. I've also attended concerts on the coasts where audiences were not generous and people would get up and walk out at intermission if they didn't think the performance was up to par. I think that's fine, too.

5) Again, it varies, and I think it should. John Williams overture at the Hollywood bowl on a Sunday afternoon concert should be received differently than the Berg sonata in a chapel on the Italian coast in the winter.