Alex Ross used his Royal Philharmonic Society Lecture this week to challenge some assumptions about concert hall decorum. Clapping between movements, as he points out, was the norm up until the early 20th century. Is he right that the 'No Applause Rule' is off-putting to newcomers? Should we look to jazz as a model for liberal applauding conventions? Should we be 'tweeting our enthusiasm'? And why is it that opera directors are the only people in classical music to get booed these days?

Schnabel said: “Applause is a receipt, not a note of demand”. It should be spontaneous, and sometimes when it comes between movements, in the "wrong" place, it can be really special. Let's stop being quite so well-behaved at classical concerts!

Do performers get put off their stride by it? I suspect they like the feeling of having touched the audience, of having provoked a response beyond the automatic.

By the same token, a few minutes reverential/stunned/awed silence at the end of a fine performance can be deeply moving.

Gavin - I thought the following might amuse. It's from a friend of mine who was at Alex Ross's lecture. She is a fervent concert-goer and has very strong opinions about everything to do with the classical music world, as you will see.....

".....the 'no applause-ists' vs the 'anytimeyouwanttoapplaud-ists' battle is going to go on forever.
It's a non-issue as far as I'm concerned. A 4-mvt symphony or string quartet, or a 3-mvt concerto or piano sonata is more than just 3 or 4 disparate pieces. It's a journey, a whole, from the first bar of the first movement to the last bar of the finale, at least in the hands of the best composers, and I have no truck with this 'don't repress your instincts, applaud if you want to' shit."

I agree with Alex Ross that big codas are designed to elicit applause. I that sense, the audience is just doing what is expected of them - so much for spontineity. But big codas at the ends of first movements can be problematic, like in Bruckner symphonies, for example, or in Brahms' 1st Piano Concerto. Silence after those just seems wrong.

Disparate elements can tell journeys all their own as well as being part of a bigger journey.

At a trio of concerts I attended at the Wigmore in 2007, 'Maria Joao Pires & Friends', the audience were invited to refrain from applauding until the end of the first half (and then again at the end of the evening). The programme was a mixture of Schubert's songs (performed by the wonderful Rufus Muller), string quartets (the Brodsky) and piano music (the Impromptus, the D940 Fantasie, played by MJP and Ricardo Castro). The performers remained on the stage even when not playing, which created a salon atmosphere, and somehow we all felt we might have been at Schubert's house, enjoying music with friends. Here applause was almost unnecessarily - the silences at the end of the pieces were enough to tell the performers they had charmed us. The closing piece of one of the concerts was the song 'Nacht Und Traume', and during the final bars, the house-lights were dimmed. It was a truly magical moment, and I'm glad to say NO ONE applauded for at least 5 mins, leaving us to quietly digest the beautiful music we had just heard.

It's a shame if newcomers to classical concerts feel they will get into trouble if they applaud in the wrong place. The worst thing is those busy-bodies in the audience, who turn and "shussh" loudly if someone dares to put their hands together inappropriately. I agree with Alex Ross, though: coughing between movements and opening blister packs of sweets, or rustling the programme, is far worse, as I think it smacks of inattention, or boredom.

Love the idea of a coding system!

There's one answer to this one - if you're not sure if you should applaud, wait and see what the aficionados do!
However, I too feel that enjoying the music is much more important than getting the applause in the right place, and on no account should you turn round and "shush" anyone. It's always good to see that someone is hearing a classical concert maybe for the first time!

Did Alex Ross mention that we used to applaud _during_ movements as well as at the end of them? I recall reading descriptions of Haydn's London Symphonies being performed in, err, London, and audiences happily breaking into applause at the conclusion of a good oboe solo, for instance.

Now, of course, a concert hall is a kind of secular temple, and reverence is indeed the default 'correct' attitude we are expected to adopt. It is just that with the rise of High Fidelity recordings, personal stereos, etc, our opportunities to experience music without distraction have grown, while our chance to experience it communally have diminished. Perhaps Alex Ross is right to raise it for discussion.

And of course, there IS a repertoire where this happens already--Opera--or more specifically Italian opera. (Who'd dare clap in the middle of the Ring??)

I'm told you can get into trouble for clapping at the end of Act 1 of Parsifal at Bayreuth too.