Are Irish classical music audiences badly behaved?

Clinker

Yes, audiences for the NSO at the NCH had been declining alarmingly last season and the first half of this season the NCH was generally only half-full. Lately for some reason they've been much better attended.

Talking during music continues, but no clapping between movements. But oddly, this season there is often a (weak) round of applause as the orchestra comes on.

Dirigent

I don't really mind if people applaud between movements, I don't have an issue with that. If people want to show their appreciation, so be it.

However, what I do have a big issue with are those idiots who have to start shouting "Bravo!" immediately after the orchestra finishes playing, before the conductor drops his hands, particularly in something like Tchaikovsky's Pathetique. To me, listening to those last few notes fade away into complete silence is one of the great joys of attending a live orchestral performance.

mambo

Dirigent wrote: »

I don't really mind if people applaud between movements, I don't have an issue with that. If people want to show their appreciation, so be it.

However, what I do have a big issue with are those idiots who have to start shouting "Bravo!" immediately after the orchestra finishes playing, before the conductor drops his hands, particularly in something like Tchaikovsky's Pathetique. To me, listening to those last few notes fade away into complete silence is one of the great joys of attending a live orchestral performance.

Agreed. They are plonkers who love the sound of their own voice more than the music.

IceFjoem

I was at the Horizons concert there on Tuesday afternoon in the NCH. The program consisted of works by Irish composer Ann Cleare as well as the Greek composer Iannis Xenakis. Anyway, some fool brought an infant baby with them to the concert, I couldn't believe it. Now to be fair the baby was amazingly well behaved considering the loud volumes of the orchestra, but still there were outbursts from the baby every couple of minutes.

The concert was likely being recorded so I'm sure Ann was raging, I know i would have been. I almost felt like giving out to them afterwards. Talk about inappropriate events to bring a baby!

COYW

Clinker wrote: »

Yes, audiences for the NSO at the NCH had been declining alarmingly last season and the first half of this season the NCH was generally only half-full. Lately for some reason they've been much better attended.

I have only been to the NCH once this year and that was a sell out. We did well to get tickets from returns.

Clinker

COYW wrote: »

I have only been to the NCH once this year and that was a sell out. We did well to get tickets from returns.

As I say, the last few NSO concerts have been better attended, but I can't think of one that could have been a sell-out (but maybe I missed it, I don't go to all of them!), unless it was the Mahler last week: that did seem full. Last night was well-attended but not sold out, there were a good few empty seats towards the back of the main balcony, I'm not sure about the stalls.

In the autumn and last year most of the NSO Concerts weren't half-full.

IceFjoem

Clinker wrote: »

As I say, the last few NSO concerts have been better attended, but I can't think of one that could have been a sell-out (but maybe I missed it, I don't go to all of them!), unless it was the Mahler last week: that did seem full. Last night was well-attended but not sold out, there were a good few empty seats towards the back of the main balcony, I'm not sure about the stalls.

In the autumn and last year most of the NSO Concerts weren't half-full.

I think Beethoven 9 was completely sold out about 3 weeks ago. But, well, you know, it's Beethoven 9.

Clinker

IceFjoem wrote: »

I think Beethoven 9 was completely sold out about 3 weeks ago. But, well, you know, it's Beethoven 9.

What's happened to my memory? I was at that, and yes, I can believe it was sold out. But it's more likely with a choral work: the choir seats are gone and the choir's friends and relations all want to come (especially if it's Beethoven's Ninth!).

Dirigent

Anyone else experiencing a problem with the NCH website? I go into "What's On", select a month and it just sits there. Firefox & IE.

IceFjoem

Dirigent wrote: »

Anyone else experiencing a problem with the NCH website? I go into "What's On", select a month and it just sits there. Firefox & IE.

Working fine for me anyway...try deleting your system files. :pac:

Sanguine Fan

I thought it timely to revive this thread in light of an astonishing article in today's online edition of the Irish Independent:
http://www.independent.ie/world-news/europe/leading-scientist-ejected-by-audience-after-trying-to-crowd-surf-at-classical-music-concert-30371249.html

The gist of the article is that a member of the audience at a performance of Handel's Messiah in Bristol was forcibly ejected when he tried to crowd-surf. Apparently the organiser of the concert, Tom Morris, had encouraged the audience to “Clap or whoop when you like, and no shushing other people.” However, some of the audience felt that this particular individual was going too far and threw him out.

Mr. Morris was quoted as saying: “The Bristol Proms are contributing to a ground-breaking way of thinking which will pave the way for a new kind of classical concert. But by allowing an audience to respond in whatever way they want, you also allow an audience to self-regulate, as we discovered.”

If this is the future of live classical music - and I pray it is not - perhaps we will look back on the era of paper-rustling and coughing as a golden age of concert-going!

evolving_doors

Sanguine Fan wrote: »

I thought it timely to revive this thread in light of an astonishing article in today's online edition of the Irish Independent:
http://www.independent.ie/world-news/europe/leading-scientist-ejected-by-audience-after-trying-to-crowd-surf-at-classical-music-concert-30371249.html

The gist of the article is that a member of the audience at a performance of Handel's Messiah in Bristol was forcibly ejected when he tried to crowd-surf. Apparently the organiser of the concert, Tom Morris, had encouraged the audience to “Clap or whoop when you like, and no shushing other people.” However, some of the audience felt that this particular individual was going too far and threw him out.

Mr. Morris was quoted as saying: “The Bristol Proms are contributing to a ground-breaking way of thinking which will pave the way for a new kind of classical concert. But by allowing an audience to respond in whatever way they want, you also allow an audience to self-regulate, as we discovered.”

If this is the future of live classical music - and I pray it is not - perhaps we will look back on the era of paper-rustling and coughing as a golden age of concert-going!

Grand finale with crowd surfing by the performer himself (at about 3:30)...

Once everyone is a consentin adult and all that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIG9bCqTDY4

Sanguine Fan

Armelodie wrote: »

Grand finale with crowd surfing by the performer himself (at about 3:30)...

Once everyone is a consentin adult and all that.

Thanks for that. I have been warned!

Ralf and Florian

SubBusted wrote: »

There's no real class system in Ireland. Too much riff raff going to these concerts.

Only someone with no class would express an opinion like that.

dlouth15

I have a bit of a problem with what might be called "concert etiquette". Not so much the rules themselves but rather that when there's an emphasis on rules and etiquette, common sense can go out the window.

For example the convention against applause between movements means that people must be silent throughout an entire work when in reality it is entirely natural to applaud when a movement ends. I believe the only reason there's no applause is because no one else is doing it. No one likes to look like a fool and therefore we all go along with it. But if it was the convention to applaud, we'd probably be quite happy with that too.

What is interesting, though, is that it seems to be a comparatively recent convention. It didn't exist in Mozart or Beethoven's time and applause between movements probably continued long into the "Romantic" era and into the 20th century in some places. Alex Ross, whom I've quoted earlier in this thread, thinks that in many places it continued into the 50s. He also noted that coughing became a sort of substitute for applause and that it would appear in concerts about the same time you would have had applause in Mozart's day. Mozart also wrote with approval about audience response during music he was conducting.

Possibly the reason you get a rush to applaud even before the conductor has lowered his hands (which can indeed be annoying) is because the audience have been forced to sit in an unnatural silence for the duration which can be over an hour in many cases. I think as well that applause gives the audience an opportunity to cough in an unselfconscious way, thereby not being forced to cough during the music.

I appreciate that some people may like the church- or museum-like atmosphere in the modern classical concert, and some may like the feeling of superiority that they know the various rules of etiquette, but I do think that some of these conventions, though well intentioned, work against enjoyment of the music itself.

evolving_doors

Resist that urge to applaud before it finishes folks , its just someone showing-off that only they appreciate it more than you. They are so overtly enthusiastic and 'au fait' that they just simply must get in there before anyone else... It's like a comedy gig I went to where some idiot in the crowd couldn't contain themselves and had to mimic all the gags of the comedian ...even the punchlines. They were mimicking because obviously they were more of a fan than anyone else and boy did they let us know it.

As regards clapping between movements.... Personally I wouldn't because it's annoying and just not done.. so don;t do it. Most symphonic works the mvts. are about balance and contrast. To treat them as individual parcels disrupts the contrast. The same way you wouldn't clap between a theme and variations. Incidentally I was at a concert a few years ago whereby the audience (who were unaware as to what Theme and Variations meant) clapped mistakenly at the end of an admittedly very long theme. It completely ruined it for the performer/performance I think.. It was like someone clapping after the introduction to a speech as if everything had been said!

Premature ovation is just rude

banquo

Doshea3 wrote: »

I'll never forget seeing Alfred Brendel in the NCH about 5 or 6 years ago and there were several people SNORING in the audience! I know our very own Banquo (not sure if he posts anymore) elbowed one of them who was sitting beside him.

Damn right.

dlouth15

Armelodie wrote: »

As regards clapping between movements.... Personally I wouldn't because it's annoying and just not done.. so don;t do it.

It is an interesting point, but I was at a concert in London recently and I noticed that between the movements of the two symphonies being played there was polite applause. This was a mid-week concert so likely had an audience interested in the music rather than merely a night out at a posh event.

Personally I didn't find it annoying. The silence+coughing that you get here seems very unnatural.

Seanf999

Being 17 I probably have a different experience than the majority of other posters on this particular trend but regardless,
I was at a school event where NSO played for Primary school children (I myself was one at the time this event took place) but I remember it being completely silent at times. I mean a concert hall full of kids between the ages of 10-13 and it was quiet!
Of course there were times between pieces where you could here some child ask to use the bathroom or a teacher explaining what instruments were playing but other then that the majority of the hall (or at least those within my earshot were quiet!)
I remember being allowed to tap away on the steinway piano after the performance because my teacher pulled a few strings