Don't Clap! A Layman's Guide to Concert Etiqutte

Now first off, this is no elitist musician’s take on how one should behave at concerts --- it’s very simple. When i’m on stage and someone does something at an inopportune moment, say clap, I become very distracted. And then, I think to myself, wasn’t there a time when everyone knew what to do at concerts or was that something that faded away while the stigma of rich intellectuals attending stuffy concerts grew? Well no longer. Attending concerts of any sort, be they orchestras, chamber music or opera is supposed to be enjoyable and easy. So in this short essay, we’ll talk about what to do when you go to the recital hall.

Now I was inspired to write this after attending an outdoor concert given my the New York Philharmonic. On the program was Wagner’s Overture to Der fligende Holländer, Lalo’s Symphonie espagnole and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No.5 and multiple times during the five movement Lalo and four movement Tchaikovsky there was clapping --- clapping during some sort of pause or quiet moment, some point of uncertainty. I looked over to my friends, other musicians, to see what their reaction was to the mass adulation that couldn’t really stop except by some loud chord given by the orchestra. It made me wonder, why exactly did these people clap? Did they really think it was over? And I really want to believe that you don’t have to be a musician or some kind of cultural savant to know when to clap. So here’s the first tip: read the program. the program for that New York Philharmonic concert looked like this:


Wagner (1813-83) Overture to Der fliegende Holländer (The Flying Dutchman) (1840-41, rev. 1860)

Lalo (1823-92) Symphonie espagnole for Violin and Orchestra, op. 21 (1874)
Allegro non troppo
Scherzando: Allegro molto
Intermezzo: Allegretto non troppo
Andante
Rondo: Allegro

Tchaikovsky (1840-93) Symphony No. 5 in E minor, op. 64 (1888)
Andante -- Allegro con anima
Andante cantabile, con alcuna licenza
Valse: Allegro moderato
Finale: Andante maestoso -- Allegro vivace -- Moderato assai e molto maestoso


The words under the title of the piece (i.e. allegro non troppo) are the movements. If there are five lines, that means five movements, four distinct stops not including the end. So for the most part, it’ll sound like it’s over four different times before you get to the very end. If you know that, that’s a good start.

The second tip, which can’t always be accomplished, is just to watch the conductor. If those hands are down for a good 10 seconds then the piece might be over. The conductor will let you know (they want that silence more than anybody) I’ve even been in concerts where the conductor waved off the audience at the sheer thought of clapping because it wasn’t over. They tend to be the nitpickiest out of all of us and the idea of that silence inbetween movements is close to sacrasant.

My last tip and I think is the best under any situation is simple – don’t clap! If you think it’s over and you’re not sure, don’t clap. If other people around you are clapping, don’t clap. Even if you’re positive it’s over, don’t clap. Better to be safe than sorry, right? And believe you me, we do want you to clap – we hope that we’ve done something worth clapping about so trust me, it doesn’t irritate us too much (it’s better to hear clapping at the wrong time than to hear no clapping at all) but we don’t want anyone to miss out on hearing anything, no matter how small.

Now there are lots of other things that people do during concerts that common sense can fix like answering phones (that is a pet peeve, one of the biggest) talking to people in the audience (we’re in an acoustically reinforced hall, we can hear you) getting up/coming in/leaving during a piece (we can see you too, no matter where you are) things that maybe people may take for granted. Maybe it bothers us musicians because it makes us feel like people don’t appreciate what we’re doing, what we love so much. But that is a completely different essay.

When I give my concerts at the college I attend, a very unique problem we have is the opening of candy and food that make the loudest noise that we can hear throughout the entire hall. I start to laugh to myself when I think about how silly of a distraction that is but it is unnerving. think about if you were giving a speech you had prepared for days and someone has opened a big bag of fritos and starts munching away. Not the best.

I would like to talk about why people feel the way that they do when it comes to seeing classical music performed but as I said, that’s an entirely different subject. So until then, follow those three tips and you won’t go wrong. You and your fellow attendees might hear something they’ve never heard before. Happy listening!