{"id":4173,"date":"2010-03-08T14:54:29","date_gmt":"2010-03-08T22:54:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/?p=4173"},"modified":"2013-02-07T20:15:20","modified_gmt":"2013-02-08T04:15:20","slug":"applause-please","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2010\/03\/08\/applause-please\/","title":{"rendered":"applause, please"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alex Ross, classical music writer at The New Yorker<\/em> (and author of the acclaimed music history The Rest is Noise<\/em>), has a great article<\/a> in the UK’s Guardian<\/em> newspaper on the role that outdated classical music etiquette plays in discouraging new audiences to the medium.\u00a0 Highly worth a read – here’s the opening gambit:<\/p>\n

Last autumn, Barack Obama hosted an evening of classical music<\/a> at the White House. Beforehand, he said, “Now, if any of you in the audience are newcomers to classical music, and aren’t sure when to applaud, don’t be nervous. Apparently, President Kennedy had the same problem. He and Jackie held several classical music events here, and more than once he started applauding when he wasn’t supposed to. So the social secretary worked out a system where she’d signal him through a crack in the door. Now, fortunately, I have Michelle to tell me when to applaud. The rest of you are on your own.”<\/p>\n

Obama was having fun at the expense of the No Applause Rule, which holds that one must refrain from clapping until all movements of a work have sounded. No aspect of our modern concert ritual causes more bewilderment. The problem is not that the Rule is so arcane that even a law professor turned commander-in-chief cannot master it. Rather, it’s that the etiquette and the music sometimes work at cross-purposes. The noisy codas of the first movement of Beethoven’s “Emperor” and the third\u00a0movement of Tchaikovsky’s Path\u00e9tique demand applause, even beg for it. The word “applause” comes from the instruction plaudite<\/em>, which appears at the end of Roman comedies. Those climactic chords are the musical equivalent of plaudite<\/em>: they almost mimic the action of putting one’s hands together.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

[link<\/a>] – Guardian.co.uk<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alex Ross, classical music writer at The New Yorker (and author of the acclaimed music history The Rest is Noise), has a great article in the UK’s Guardian newspaper on the role that outdated classical music etiquette plays in discouraging new audiences to the medium.\u00a0 Highly worth a read – here’s the opening gambit: Last […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":303,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[148,1025,2],"tags":[55],"class_list":["post-4173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-appreciations","category-historical-performance","category-the-orchestra-world","tag-orchestra"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa8kC-15j","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":132,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2006\/12\/04\/the-value-of-radio\/","url_meta":{"origin":4173,"position":0},"title":"the value of radio","author":"Charles Noble","date":"December 4, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"I was perusing the 2002 Audience Insight study (presented by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation) on orchestral audience segmentation when I found this paragraph (which was used as a pull-quote in large type on the first page of the study findings). It makes the pulling of the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":475,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2007\/10\/11\/oso-classical-series-b-concert-1\/","url_meta":{"origin":4173,"position":1},"title":"OSO Classical Series B – Concert 1","author":"Charles Noble","date":"October 11, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"This got buried amidst all of the intervening news of last week, and I thought that those of you who are coming to the concerts this weekend might be interested in doing some advance listening in preparation for the concert experience. So pardon the duplication of posts. This year I've\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/10\/spacer1.gif?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":530,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2007\/11\/12\/classical-6-imix\/","url_meta":{"origin":4173,"position":2},"title":"Classical 6 iMix","author":"Charles Noble","date":"November 12, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Here's the iMix for this coming week's classical series concerts with conductor Hannu Lintu and cellist Ralph Kirshbaum. The recommended Sibelius recording is from a set recorded in the 60's by Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic. I'd' long heard that it was a landmark recording of the complete\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "music"","block_context":{"text":"music","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/11\/spacer1.gif?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":21470,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2021\/05\/31\/new-podcast-episode-classical-up-close-with-sarah-kwak-and-nancy-ives\/","url_meta":{"origin":4173,"position":3},"title":"new podcast episode: Classical Up Close with Sarah Kwak and Nancy Ives","author":"Charles Noble","date":"May 31, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Classical Currents \u00b7 Ep 009 - Classical Up Close 2021 With Sarah Kwak And Nancy Ives","rel":"","context":"In "classical currents"","block_context":{"text":"classical currents","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/classical-currents\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6086,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2011\/03\/30\/cream-of-the-classical-crop\/","url_meta":{"origin":4173,"position":4},"title":"cream of the classical crop","author":"Charles Noble","date":"March 30, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=oM9ZRLXZBR8&hd=1 Discovered via @Oregon_Symphony on Twitter.","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/oM9ZRLXZBR8\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":123,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2006\/11\/23\/jeremy-denk-killed-classical-music\/","url_meta":{"origin":4173,"position":5},"title":"jeremy denk killed classical music","author":"Charles Noble","date":"November 23, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"A great post from a great blog - here's a taste: It's dangerous to roam the Classical Internet. Surfing and clicking from the discomfort of my ancient Hoosier sofa, it seems that every time I turn around, I run across yet another article entitled: Who (or What) Killed Classical Music?\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/303"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4173\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}