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Phlebas, a lout you most certainly are not!

This topic developed into a general discussion about decorum during piano concert recitals and I put forward my strongly-felt point of view, by which I stand firm. Some of the reactions to my standpoint were quite insulting.

I respect - that word again! - your stance too and I apologise if I offended you. There will always be strong differeneces of opinion expressed throughout these forums but, as you rightly say, ultimately our love for the piano is what binds us

Cruiser, thank you. The snarkiness of this place gets to me sometimes, but I'm guilty of it too from time to time.

Pianoloverus, I'll have to look them up. There is a place in Brooklyn, and I believe the Knitting Factory as well, but let me check and get back to you.

Actually, the "classical concert" didn't become a serious event until relatively recently. During the 18th century, people did not treat concerts with anything like the reverence we treat them today - they talked, they made noise, they socialized, they hardly paid attention to the performers. It was only around the time of Liszt that this whole "reverence" thing started, and even then, a lot of performers (such as Chopin) played at salons where, presumably, there was nowhere near the awed hush that one expects these days. If anything, classical music is getting more stuffy rather than less.

Why do you describe quiet enjoyment of, and paying attention to, a classical music performance as "stuffy"? Would you describe the atmosphere of a library or museum as stuffy?

Steven

I think that depends on which time periods you're comparing. If you compare 1950-present to the mid 19th century then what you say is true. But if you compare 20 or even 10 years ago to today, I would say that today's performances are less "stuffy" in the sense that the standard attire of performers back then(tux usually, suit once in a while)has evolved so that many young and not so young performers dress much more informally.

For me this is a nice change.

Additionally, I think(?)it is true that there is much more willingness to progam contemporary music today than 20 years ago.

It depends on what "quiet enjoyment" means. If it means being afraid to breathe too loudly because otherwise you will disturb the sacred intentions of the composer, yes, I'll call that stuffy. If it means sitting quietly and enjoying the music, but not getting bent out of shape if someone coughs, that's fine.

There's a jazz club I really like to go to; the band that plays there is wonderful. People go to that jazz club to enjoy the music. And yes, cell phones or crying babies would probably be frowned upon; but the audience is free to consume its drinks or quietly converse between themselves, or applaud a particularly wonderful solo; it's a relaxed environment. I like that paradigm better than that of the library or museum. I don't think that art needs an awed hush in order to be art.

I don't think a comparison between a jazz club and a classical concert is apt.

Using sarcastic language like "being afraid to breathe too loudly because otherwise you will disturb the sacred intentions of the composer" speaks loudly (!) about your own sensibilities, but I already knew where you were coming from by the way you used the term "stuffy."

I'm such a stuffy, stodgy elitist that I even prefer silence in a movie theater. What a concept!

Steven

I think it is probably wrong to presume that at the private salons there were people chattering and being less than attentive to the music. Since they were private, the atmosphere would have been fairly well set by the person giving it, and, in the case of Chopin, given the whisper-quiet nuance of his playing and the reported hypnotic effect of it, I'd guess the salons where he played were pretty darned quiet and respectful. Of course, it would vary, but I bet the best of them, the ones that attracted the top musicians, were pretty quiet.

A different point to keep in mind is that for a long time, much of the "classical music" that people heard was heard in church, and I'm guessing that quiet was the norm.

Why isn't the comparison between a jazz club and a classical concert all that apt, actually? Both places are places where people come to hear music.

I do think that there is a "deification" phenomenon going on with respect to classical composers. We put classical music up on a pedestal. There is a certain awe, and a certain sense of sacredness, with respect to the way we approach classical composers (compare the way you think of Mozart with the way you think of a jazz composer, or a rock songwriter). I'm not sure that all this mystique is necessary for the enjoyment of classical music. I think the music can stand on its own.

I like silence in a movie theater, too. But I don't turn around and glare at someone who crinkles a cough drop wrapper during the movie.

I think it comes down to different ways of appreciating differing types of music, which isn't to say that those different ways are intrinsic to the music itself—only that they're mandated by the generally accepted norms of the setting.

Some individuals might wish to stand up and dance to classical music or to sing along with opera, while others might prefer to sit in passive silence at a rock performance. Nevertheless, there's a consensus of what's appropriate in those various environments that seems based—like, ideally, other standards of public behavior that make up the social contract—on not allowing our actions to interfere with the enjoyment of others to the extent possible.

I think awe and reverence toward what we like is entirely natural and appropriate, and I don't mind the expectation that we express it differently as the circumstances warrant. (While it's possible to sit through a jazz or rock concert without even undulating yet not impinge upon anyone else's experience, it's not the best way to show one's appreciation!)

Steven

I worked at the Seattle Art Museum.

Yes.

Because the nature of the two kinds of music is quite different, as is the social history behind them. I'm not sitting a table with a drink in hand chatting with friends when the orchestra strikes up Bruckners' 8th. And neither am I sitting in a reserved seat expecting many dozens of musicians to be reading from their score (which I am already familiar with) while a conductor shapes the performance, when instead a few musicians stroll in and casually start to improvise on a chord progression one of the players has come up with a few hours earlier, which I've never heard before.

I think this is missing the point. Despite some relatively early music being written with the knowledge that there might be a noisy audience, the fact is that most of the classical music we listen to was written with the presumption that listeners would be paying close attention to it, and will be able to hear everything without distraction. For an example, which although extreme is still a good illustration, there are pieces by Webern (and others) that are so soft and evanescent that they literally could be obliterated by a single person in the audience coughing loudly.

But is going to a movie the same as going to a concert? I don't think so. Besides all sorts of cultural stuff, there's just the plain fact that the movie itself is a recording that can be repeated over and over, and a live concert cannot be repeated ever (even if the pieces played are identical).

Exactly; that was my point. The awed silence that is expected of us at a classical concert is neither the only way to appreciate good music (or express our appreciation), nor the way the composer expected for such music to be appreciated. No, Mozart probably did not expect the audience to get up and dance and scream - but neither did he expect awed silence with no applause between movements and glares at anyone who dares to applaud. The social construct that is the modern classical concert is of relatively recent vintage, and I think it is hurting classical music.

Again, when this music was written, this is not too far from what happened. A cadenza in a piano concerto was intended to be improvised. In Baroque music, the continuo players were expected to improvise their part. In the Romantic era, lots of composers wrote Impromptus and Fantaisies and other such things that were improvised. The social history may not be all that different - music is music.


Webern, maybe; by that time, the "classical mystique" was fully established, and composers expected to be deified and to be listened to in an awed hush. But if you read an 18th century account of a concert, you might get a relatively different picture. Yes, people paid attention - but people pay attention to rock songs, too, at a rock concert. Attention is not the point. Awed silence is. And 18th century audiences were anything but silent.

Think about opera theatres in the 18th and 19th century - do you think people sat there in awed silence? From contemporary accounts, a lot of talking and socializing and loud noises seemed to go on.

This would seem to mean that audiences should be even more awed by jazz concerts; after all, a classical musician plays the same notes over and over and over again, while a jazz musician plays it differently every time.

It's a shame that classical music has a reputation for being intellectual and repressed, when the live performance thereof is often profoundly moving and emotional.

But of course many, many people will never find this out because, quite frankly, a lot of people who have never been to a recital or concert are put off by all the 'rules' (or, more accurately, are afraid they don't know all the rules and won't know how to act).

It is also a shame that, for those who do attend, the experience is often ruined by mortal fear of having to cough or sneeze...or trying to repress one.

I don't have mortal fear of coughing at recitals but I do try very hard to supress/avoid coughing. This can, as you say, become quite unpleasant.

Does anyone know any tricks that can be used to supress coughing? Someone I know who sings in a chorus that performs a lot in public once told me something about squeezing a piece of skin on your wrist as a preventitive measure.

Anyone know any good methods to avoid coughing?

I really wonder, incidentally, why there is so much coughing at classical recitals. At the last opera I went to - La Traviata - the coughing was pretty much non-stop. It was quite fitting during the final scene - I'm sure Verdi would have approved - but one really has to wonder what's making all those folks cough so much. I never hear that much coughing - or in fact, any coughing - at movie theaters or jazz clubs or any other venues. Nor do I ever hear any coughing at the lectures I attend in school. Why classical concerts?

It's probably the fear of coughing itself that causes so much coughing -- classical concerts have a 'reputation' for coughing.

I am seriously tempted to compose a piece that uses coughing as part of the music, hand out sheetmusic to the audience, and instruct them to cough on cue. Has anyone ever done that?

i always carry mints or cough drops to concerts - i don't really have a coughing problem tho.