Should you clap between movements?

[lennygoran]

I was in the kitchen yesterday preparing dinner and listening via youtube to Beethoven's violin concerto with Hillary Hahn playing out of Detroit and was surprised that when movement 1 ended there was applauding-Hahn even took a little bow. I know we discussed this before but I forgot-is there a proper etiquette on whether to not applaud until the work is over?

Googling produced stuff like this:
People also askShould you clap between movements?There's a bit of a tradition in classical music that you only clap after a piece has finished – and never in between movements. ... At a classical concert, you can't guarantee that this display of enthusiasm won't earn you a few tuts from other audience members.Oct 4, 2017

Appropriate Applause at Classical Music Performances

When the conductor, concertmaster, and guest artists walk on stage: When the conductor steps on the platform and raises his or her baton, all clapping ceases, and the audience becomes silent. ...
At the end of the entire piece: ...
At the end of the concert:

Regards, Len

[Ricordanza]

is there a proper etiquette on whether to not applaud until the work is over?

Yes, proper concert etiquette calls for waiting until the entire work is over to applaud. This practice is observed at just about every piano recital I've attended, reflecting the fact that these events draw a more experienced, sophisticated audience.

However, orchestral concerts attract a more varied audience, some of whom are less familiar with this point of etiquette. As a result, there is an occasional burst of applause at the conclusion of a movement--usually after the first movement of a concerto. In most cases, the soloist and conductor are gracious in acknowledging this "breach" of etiquette. After all, the applause indicates enthusiastic approval of their performance!

[diegobueno]

I guess this is the place to cite the letter Mozart wrote to his father about the performance in Paris of the symphony now known as the Paris Symphony (no. 31, K. 297)

in the m i d s t o f t h e f i r s t a l l e g r o came a passage I had known would please. The audience was quite carried away-there was a great outburst of applause. But, since I knew when I wrote it that it would make a sensation, I had brought it in again in the last—and then it came again, da capo!

Mozart expected the audience to applaud not just at the end of a movement, but while the movement was being played. Imagine that! So this shows that the etiquette of applause has changed over the years and we can expect it will continue to change.

The thing is that so many symphonic movements, first movements especially, end with big bangy tonic chords with trumpets and drums -- they might as well have neon lights go on that read "Applaud". It's like the composers are inviting the audience to applaud at the end of the movement.
I think Beethoven would have liked to have had some applause at the end of the first movement of his violin concerto. He didn't finish it until two days before the premiere, and the soloist was sight-reading the part. The soloist, Franz Clement, took time out between movements to perform a few compositions of his own while holding the violin upside-down. I imagine that got a lot of applause.

With Mendelssohn we get perhaps the first instance of a composer trying to suppress applause between movements. The first movement of his Violin Concerto ends with the obligatory big tonic chord, out of which a bassoon holds a note over and other wind instruments join, leading into the slow movement. He similarly composed links between the instrumental movements of his Symphony no. 2, the Lobgesang.

Perhaps the custom of withholding applause until the end of a multi-movement work was beginning to take hold at this moment, in the 1840s, and Mendelssohn was doing his best to enforce it.

[lennygoran]

Yes, proper concert etiquette calls for waiting until the entire work is over to applaud. This practice is observed at just about every piano recital I've attended, reflecting the fact that these events draw a more experienced, sophisticated audience.<

Hank, thanks alot. Regards, Len

[lennygoran]

I guess this is the place to cite the letter Mozart wrote to his father about the performance...I think Beethoven would have liked to have had some applause at the end of the first movement of his violin concerto.

Thanks for the Mozart letter. Next time I'm working in the kitchen and that 1st Beethoven movement ends I'm gong to clink my cooking utensil against a plate! Regards, Len

[maestrob]

is there a proper etiquette on whether to not applaud until the work is over?

Yes, proper concert etiquette calls for waiting until the entire work is over to applaud. This practice is observed at just about every piano recital I've attended, reflecting the fact that these events draw a more experienced, sophisticated audience.

However, orchestral concerts attract a more varied audience, some of whom are less familiar with this point of etiquette. As a result, there is an occasional burst of applause at the conclusion of a movement--usually after the first movement of a concerto. In most cases, the soloist and conductor are gracious in acknowledging this "breach" of etiquette. After all, the applause indicates enthusiastic approval of their performance!

Hank---

Hello & Happy New Year!

I have a live recording of Edwin Fischer playing the Brahms Sonata #3, where the audience, after hearing a particularly moving account of the second movement, bursts into spontaneous sustained applause. Quite a moment from 1948 in an RAI broadcast.

[barney]

Applause between movements interrupts my concentration, and I don't like it much, but I swallow that on the grounds cited above that it is just reward for a fine or exciting performance. I've never heard boos at the end of a movement - though I have at the end of an aria.

[Lance]

I recall reading an article in the New York Times some years ago when pianist Artur Rubinstein was being interviewed. He said he had no objection to having applause between movements if the public was enjoying the work. The next day he gave a performance of a piano concerto and applause came after the first movement. Rubinstein looked down at the audience rather displeased without his customary smile. And so it goes … Some artists I have talked with say it breaks the concentration or spirit of the moment if applause is heard between movements, and this I can appreciate and understand completely. Personally, I applaud only at the conclusion of a work. Opera, of course, is quite different.

[barney]

I recall reading an article in the New York Times some years ago when pianist Artur Rubinstein was being interviewed. He said he had no objection to having applause between movements if the public was enjoying the work. The next day he gave a performance of a piano concerto and applause came after the first movement. Rubinstein looked down at the audience rather displeased without his customary smile. And so it goes … Some artists I have talked with say it breaks the concentration or spirit of the moment if applause is heard between movements, and this I can appreciate and understand completely. Personally, I applaud only at the conclusion of a work. Opera, of course, is quite different.

So you are happy to applaud mid-aria? You surprise me, Lance.
I like the Rubinstein anecdote. It rings so true to life.

[Ricordanza]

At the other end of the spectrum, I have attended several piano recitals where the pianist requests that applause be held until a series of pieces has been completed (and not necessarily a series of pieces by one composer). The most extreme example of this in my experience was a 2012 recital by Andras Schiff. Here's an excerpt from my impressions of that program:

....[The] first half of the program was a tour de force unlike any piano recital I have attended. Schiff presented a total of 45 pieces without pause, playing three [Bach] Inventions at a time, bracketing other works. For example, following the first three Inventions (including the C Major, BMV 772, played by just about every piano student), we heard ten pieces from Bela Bartok’s Suite For Children. Then another three inventions, and more Bartok, the highly entertaining Three Burlesques. In between the next three sets of Inventions, we heard an intriguing suite of 11 pieces by the young German composer Jörg Widmann entitled Circus Dances, and then, Bartok’s Six Dances in Bulgarian Rhythm, the last six pieces of Bartok’s 153-piece series Mikrokosmos.

[Rach3]

Today I viewed a YT where an audience clapped at the end of the 2nd mov. of LvB Op.109 piano sonata !! Fortunately the pianist did not acknowledge.I suspect he was not happy. I have also attended a lieder recital where audience applauded after every song in a Schubert cycle.

Egads in both cases.

[barney]

At the other end of the spectrum, I have attended several piano recitals where the pianist requests that applause be held until a series of pieces has been completed (and not necessarily a series of pieces by one composer). The most extreme example of this in my experience was a 2012 recital by Andras Schiff. Here's an excerpt from my impressions of that program:

....[The] first half of the program was a tour de force unlike any piano recital I have attended. Schiff presented a total of 45 pieces without pause, playing three [Bach] Inventions at a time, bracketing other works. For example, following the first three Inventions (including the C Major, BMV 772, played by just about every piano student), we heard ten pieces from Bela Bartok’s Suite For Children. Then another three inventions, and more Bartok, the highly entertaining Three Burlesques. In between the next three sets of Inventions, we heard an intriguing suite of 11 pieces by the young German composer Jörg Widmann entitled Circus Dances, and then, Bartok’s Six Dances in Bulgarian Rhythm, the last six pieces of Bartok’s 153-piece series Mikrokosmos.

Yes, I've come across that practice a few times. It is a good idea to make the performer's wishes known on the program. The Melbourne Chamber Orchestra, on its programs, notes where the audience should clap, with a little clapping hands logo. It might seem patronising, but it's valuable to people new to classical music and its conventions.

[Wallingford]

Much as I've always avoided it, this is a phenomenon that's possibly becoming a permanent thing with today's concert audiences. Leonard Slatkin doesn't appear to make a fuss over it in his live-streaming Detroit Symphony concerts. And for years it's been the norm at BSO Tanglewood concerts.