Disengagement rings
Phones, coughs... but is it our right to request silence?
Mark Wigglesworth 11:38am GMT 3rd January 2012
I recently started a performance again when its hushed opening was interrupted by a mobile-phone. Judging by the public's supportive reaction they seemed grateful, but I've since thought twice about my knee-jerk reaction and on reflection I'm not sure if it's a performer's role or indeed our right to tell audiences how they should behave.
The advantages of music being heard with silent focus and rapt concentration are obvious, and the journey from the minstrel's gallery to the etiquette of modern-day concert-halls is essentially beneficial. But has something been lost along the way? Music is a social experience and whether being played or heard, enforcing rules runs contrary to the most natural idea of what music-making is all about. Classical music is the only musical medium that discourages audiences from participating in the performance and the resulting disconnect between listener and player is dangerous. I'm not advocating singing along, or applauding instrumental solos before movements have finished, but forbidding people from doing so creates an inhibiting atmosphere. Within that context, it's not surprising that some feel alienated from the experience.
Wagner's generation started the pedestal nature of the performer's podium. With auditorium lights darkened, the spotlight is symbolic as well as practical. The public's identity is subsumed so that only that of the music and its performers remain. But once you start to distance the auditorium from the stage, a certain disengagement is bound to follow. Noisy disruptions are the result of the problem - not the problem itself. My heart always sinks when I hear the now customary pre-concert mobile-phone announcement. People are paying us to play for them. Are we entitled to ask that they conform to our own sense of formality? I'm actually far more distracted by the ill-timed and un-stifled cough. The phone is someone's single moment of forgetfulness. The 'culprit' could well be living and loving every phrase. Insensitive throat-clearers however are not listening to what's being played, which even if not more disruptive, is certainly more disappointing.
Neither theatres nor cinemas attract as many bronchitis sufferers. Is it the absence of visual variety that creates concert-hall restlessness or does the lack of orchestras' individual identity mean that people don't consider it rude to 'interrupt'? Certainly the more easily identifiable personality of soloists means that concertos suffer less than symphonies. Perhaps audiences are just more relaxed when they go to plays and films, and somewhat conversely, feel less need to cough and fidget as a result.
I've had many concerts spoilt by an audience's audible participation. And the most memorable are those in which their silence makes an enormous contribution. But maybe that's putting the cart before the horse. Perhaps the best performances create the stillness in the first place. Is it not our fault that people's attention wanders? I certainly think that ultimately the solution lies more with the performers than with potentially patronising announcements. If we truly engage audiences in what we do, a more relevant message would be one that reminds people to switch their phones on again once their life-changing musical experience is over.
Comments
We have reached a point in our classical music life where things will change, or might have to change. Mozart's concert performances were quite noisy. During the renaissance dogs were part of the audience too. You only have to look at Breughel's paintings to see how jolly festive the activities (concert) were. We have put ourselves into this straight jacket of a certain behaviour during a classical concert performance. I once attended a concert and the man next to me started to eat a packet of salt and vinegar crisps. At that moment I nearly blew up. Still concerts are part of life. During a recital by Mitsuko Uchida at the Wimore Hall a patron in the audience died during the 1st movement. Mitsuko paused. The body was removed between movements. Mutsiko's comment could not have been more appropriate. "What a lovely moment to die". We have to adapt ourselves to changing times. I am waiting to see "twitter" "facebook" life reports from patrons attending a concert,if they are not there already. Fortunately we have access to perfect recordings without coughs, ringing mobile phones. That is your alternative.
While I hate having my concert experience disturbed by ringtones, coughs, inconsiderate candy wrappers, etc., I also feel that it should be completely appropriate to applaud between movements (as long as the composer hasn't dictated the following movement to be performed 'attaca'). We need concert etiquette that does not straightjacket the audience. I have a bad habit (which I now suppress) of silently marking the beat with an index finger. I wasn't aware of it until my brother asked me to stop because it distracted him. That is the appropriate response to misbehaviour. Not a shocked, haughty condemnation, but rather a gentle appeal to the offender's better inclinations.
If for no other reason than most concert halls are acoustically sensitve, making even the most forgivable sounds obtrusive, people should do their best to be as quiet as possible out of respect to other listeners and in appreciation for the music. This idea that sitting quietly and internalizing the musical experience is alienating is ridiculous. Really? You can't be quiet and still for 1.5 hours and diminish yourself before Beethoven and Shostakovich and the artists who bring this music to life? Rock music is egotistical and loud and a loud egotistical response is appropriate and, let's face it, a hell of a lot of fun. But equally fun is the hushed, rapt silence of a concert hall with the delicate sustain of a soprano or cello hoovering in perfect, unbroken stillness. Come on people, the 'rules' of the concert hall have nothing to do with antisocial or aristocratic exclusivity, but rather a proper response to the realities of concert hall acoustics and allowing for the deepest appreciation of the music. For those for whom sitting still and not fidgiting during a peformance is difficult, halls could issue Ritalin or straightjackets.
Unlike @rglenncurry, I don't understand how anyone *can* sit still during sensual, ecstatic, orgasmic music, if they're truly engaged with it.
If you're sharing a musical experience in the same building as others, it's rude to do anything that might diminish the enjoyment of others (especially portable telephones).
At home on the other hand....
Let me turn this around: is the audience, especially at home, have to be subjugated to the "I'm/We are about to start an important phrase" sniff?
Yes, it is rude to leave your phone on. Yes, it is annoying that people hack and cough and, worse, decided after about 4-5 raspy hacks, which somehow they never ever had before just then, to bring up a purse fastened, of course, with a zipper the length of the Great Wall, rustle through what seems to be a selection of pots and pans, pull out something wrapped in the most krinkly plastic designed by man, try to be discreet yet annoying everyone around for the next five minutes and then once having popped the thing into their mouth, proceed to clunk it about their teeth or crunch on it.
And as for the "back in the old days" of Mozart, people also peed and shat in the street and hallways and wore no deodorant. Thanks but I'm not cheering to bring that back.
But I'm getting more annoyed with the deliberate affectation taken by some musicians, notably string players, to insert a loud sniffs at the start of phrases which go on and on throughout a piece. It's terrible that it's so prevalent in current recordings yet at a recent string quartet recital, I was in the balcony of a large hall, the 1st violins sniff was so bad several of use debated whether we should run down and offer to wipe his nose. Sure, it was cue to the others but, heck, so many other quartets get by with the odd head nod and musicality.
To add a thought based on recent experience, I lived for two years in Tirana, Albania. There is a small but enthusiastic community of classical music lovers in the city and young performers do the best they can with the very limited resources they have. What was lacking in skill and refinement was more than made up for in spirit and determination.
However, if you want to know what a concert hall sounds like without the audience observing general concert hall ettiquette, I highly recommend you travel to Tirana for a concert in either the Akademia e Arteve te Tiranes or Teatri Kombetar i Operes.
Here you will find the ultimate conclusion of what happens when 700 individuals act as if they are at home in front of their stereo. They come and they go, they answer their phones and talk as if they are outside on the street. They get up and move around, they talk to their neighbors like they are at a cafe talking politics. It's as if the concert is some incidental event and their presence in the concert hall is arbitrary and random; they could be anywhere.
On one occassion, I had a woman sitting behind me singing along to the second movement of Rachmaninov's 2nd. Out of tune of course, but no matter, she's enjoying herself, right? And no matter that she is drowning out the winds, she's enjoying herself, right? Bravo! Why don't we put her up on stage beside the oboes and clarinets and give her a score with a part written for tone deaf female.
And the music is lost. And the performers have to somehow play this music against, or through, a wall of noise. It's like they have to not play for the audience, but just play for themselves. It wouldn't suprise me if the performers wear earplugs so they can focus on the music and not hear the audience.
Yes, at home I dance to Beethoven and Rachmaninov. Talk to my wife during a Chopin etude. I clap along to the warhorses on Hyperion's Romantic Piano Concerto series and stomp my feet to Shostakovich. And, dreadfully, I 'sing' along to The Magic Flute.
But in the concert hall, with unamplified music in an acoustically sensitve environment, I do the civilized thing and control myself, internalize the experience and keep quiet. When the music's over, then bellow, clap and stomp out my enthusiasm.
Oh dear. Even if it were "your" fault that the majority of an audience's attentions wandered off towards the contents of their handbags, I doubt you'd manage to lose everyone's attention. And even the finest, most compelling performances leave some people still thinking about what's on the menu for dinner.
Concert hall etiquette is not really about the relationship between performers and audience. It is about the relationship between individual members of the audience and their respect for each other.
I have always been convinced that habitual coughers/sweetie-fiddlers/handbag rummagers are quite sure that their performances cannot be heard by anyone else. The only other explanation is complete selfishness and disregard for the people sitting around them who want to listen to music, not to their kerfufflings.
I would ask performers to stand WITH the vast majority of the individual members of their audiences in not encouraging the occasional insensitive idiot to ruin it for the rest of us. This is not the time for hand-wringing, any more than it is the time for marimba-ringing.
Mark, I don't think your reaction was 'knee-jerk' at all; it seems appropriate - especially given the amount of work undertaken by performers at a high level.
The 'etiquette' of modern concert halls is perfectly meaningful - it is about respect: for the work, the composer, the performer(s), other members of the audience. Extraneous noise is disrespectful to all of these, and worse - it actually interferes with the art itself. The material of music is sound. So is all that extraneous noise, which therefore is a defiling of the music. No-one goes round an art gallery with a pot of paint and a brush carelessly flicking paint everywhere. Why should people do the same with sound and music?
Attention is also necessary to follow and appreciate music which is complex or has a wide variety of orchestral colour.
You also wrote, 'Classical music is the only musical medium that discourages audiences
from participating in the performance and the resulting disconnect
between listener and player is dangerous.' Depends what you mean by 'participate'. Attentive audiences are participating - with their undivided attention - a thing of value. They don't need to join in. It is a fallacy to assume that only audibly and physically demonstative reactions indicate 'true' response. They may in fact indicate a lack of attention to the music itself.
I've enjoyed rock concerts and classical concerts over the years. I jumped around during the former and in the best of the latter I've sat with my eyes shut hardly drawing breath for what seem like minutes at a time at one with the music, and I can tell you that this experience - which to an outside observer seems like mere immobility - was every bit as powerful, if not more so, than jumping around.
This is one of the great illusions about classical audiences - that because they are physically still and quiet they are not having an intense experience. It's a false assumption which is all part and parcel of materialism's lack of confidence in things which are not immediate and demonstrable.
If one goes to the trouble and expense of buying a ticket and attending an event, one doesn't want the kind of experience that can be had for free by just sitting in a cafe. Mobile phones, chatting, etc are definitely out, regardless of how audiences behaved in Mozart's day. It's worth mentioning that my friends who go to pop-type concerts complain about people texting and taking photographs.
Contact between performers and audience can be improved by such things as pre-concert talks and after the concert drinks; and many years ago I remember a splendid Dutch ensemble emerging in the interval to entertain us with a spot of lively jazz. A lot of strategies could be explored.
Noblesse oblige, as the French say.
Nobility is the answer for the concert goers and great engaging performances from the side of the performers. If these two rather rare things happen, then coughs, phone ringing and any other distraction will go...away...naturally.
Parla
Your assumption that a great performance will keep the audience in silence, and that responsibility for that lies in the performer, is so naif and seeking-for-immediate-easy-applause that leaves one speechless. I imagine those people with their cell phones on getting them out to turn them off (that would not make any noise and should be welcome, according to your line of reasoning) if they aprove of the performance... Unbelievable... You are just seeking easy recognition, Mr. Wigglesworth, you are so politically correct and righteous...
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