Must we suppress our instinctive reactions to music? LMM discusses Alex Ross' recent lecture on 21st Century concert etiquette...

Posted by Claire Samson, Consultant Project Manager on 12 March 2010 | 0 Comments

Tags: Wigmore Hall, Alex Ross, applause, LPO, Bridge Project, Agata Szymczewska

An eager audience filled the Wigmore Hall on Monday night as Alex Ross talked about the evolution of concert culture, and in particular the downfall of spontaneous applause. Ross, who writes about classical music for the New Yorker and received great acclaim for his book, 'The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century,' painted a vivid picture of days gone by, when it was perfectly acceptable to clap not just between movements but even to applaud alongside the music during particularly thrilling parts of a performance! I found his thoughts very refreshing and the LMM team pondered the issue with me in the office the following day...

Ross spent a great deal of time lamenting the fact that modern concert-going etiquette dictates we must suppress our instinctive reactions to music. It's certainly true that to start whooping with joy during a euphoric passage would be tantamount to social suicide; however, it does seem a shame that people feel compelled to retain their composure at all times, and that performers are consequently unable to gauge whether the audience members are truly enjoying the music. Ross quotes Wagner as complaining: "Now I don't know at all. Did the audience like it or not?", then subsequently slipping into a box one night to shout "bravo!" at the end of a dramatic scene - and being hissed at! But is there really anything that can be done? Our Bridge Project Manager, Robert Adediran, commented that he had been to several 'poetry slams' where people began to rapidly click their fingers when feeling particularly engaged with the reader. He says that, far from being annoying, it felt really liberating: "It's like music....there are moments of climax, it takes you on a journey. The clicking is a really nice way of showing approval, of saying: yeah, I agree, I'm with you! "

Ross stressed that he was not attempting to offer any solutions to the "passivity of modern concert behaviour", but he did imply that the atmosphere of venues themselves could be contributing to the problem, noting the "encouraging trend" of more informal concert settings like Poisson Rouge in New York, where classical music is played in a setting more akin to a jazz club. This reminded me of the monthly informal classical nights being held at 100 Club in London, featuring instrumentalists such as Nicola Benedetti and James Rhodes; they've been on my (very long) list of interesting events to try out sometime, especially as the whole ethos is very much in accordance with London Music Masters' aim to break down barriers in classical music and make it accessible for all. There will always be a need for classical music to move with the times, finding creative ways to reach new audiences.

Another facet of Ross' lecture which struck a particular chord with me (if you'll excuse the pun) was his reference to the effect of concert etiquette on children: "If you examine literature handed out by various music education associations, you notice that the suppression of enthusiasm in children is a major concern. Program booklets sometimes contain a little list of rules rendered in the style of God on Mount Sinai." It is quite heartbreaking to note how unwelcome children tend to be at traditional classical performances - I've certainly witnessed an audience's collective undercurrent of anger at a disruptive child many times - and I think it's fantastic that many venues and orchestras are increasingly holding child-friendly 'family concerts'. We bring our Bridge Project families to many of these with the Wigmore Hall, Southbank Centre and the LPO, and it is fascinating to watch the children's reactions, uncensored by perceptions of what they should or shouldn't enjoy and free to express themselves in whatever way feels natural. In a rather different context, one of our LMM Artists, violinist Agata Szymczewska, visited Ashmole Primary School last year and played some Polish folk songs to the children (see our promotional video for a clip!) Some of them started dancing around in their seats, moving emphatically and totally without inhibition along to the music.....Agata commented: "I've never seen so much fun in the room when I was playing the violin....it was really brilliant!" Similarly, we were recently lucky to be able to take some of our children to an orchestral sit-in during an LPO rehearsal with conductor Yannick Nezet-Seguin, where they sat amongst the players and became completely immersed in the music - Debussy's 'La Mer'. Many of them swayed with the melody, imitated the conductor or the violinists, and several were even seen hugging each other during a frightening passage. It was genuinely one of the most heart-warming things I have ever witnessed and, to me, compelling evidence that we should allow children the chance to experience classical music on their own terms at least some of the time, rather than forcing them to sit still and keep quiet from a very young age.

(Photographs by Matt Stuart)

The full text from Alex Ross' lecture is available to download here...

...or you can read his short summary for the Guardian here.