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 | Read the full post

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...... read more