When to applaud?

On Wednesday evening, Aaron, Jason, Adrienne and I were discussing the conventions around applauding during a performance. This came up because we had just attended the St. Lawrence String Quartet's brilliant concert presented by Rhode Island Chamber Music Concerts, and experienced the awkward silence after the thrilling and breathless conclusion to the first movement of Mendelssohn's F Minor Quartet. Awkward because the silence almost begged to be filled by an emotional response. Instead we sat on our hands and listened to people coughing and rustling papers throughout the hall…

We didn't have to worry about this during the performance the next evening at the West End Recreation Center gym. Responding to that same intensely climatic moment deliberately engineered by Mendelssohn, most the entire audience, myself included, burst into spontaneous applause. Man, did that feel good!

Alex Ross gave a recent lecture in London on the topic of concert audience etiquette. Here's how he began his remarks:

Last fall, Barack Obama hosted an evening of classical music at the White House—once an unremarkable event, more recently something of a freak occurrence. Beforehand, he said, “Now, if any of you in the audience are newcomers to classical music, and aren’t sure when to applaud, don’t be nervous. Apparently, President Kennedy had the same problem. He and Jackie held several classical-music events here, and more than once he started applauding when he wasn’t supposed to. So the social secretary worked out a system where she’d signal him through a crack in the door to the cross-hall. Now, fortunately, I have Michelle to tell me when to applaud. The rest of you are on your own.”

Read the rest of his remarks here.

-Heath Marlow, CMW staff