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Clap Them (In Irons)

July 2009 As usual nowadays, the start of this year's BBC Proms season coincides with a tussle in the media (online especially) over the subject of applause. A growing contingent insists it's OK (or even healthy) to clap between movements of a work, or before the final sounds have evanesced. There are even those, desperate to exhibit their anti-elitist credentials, that hold that clapping (even chatting) during a movement is fine.

Writing in the Daily Telegraph just before his First Night appearance, pianist Stephen Hough says: "It's time to let the audience loose: to enjoy the concerts they have paid to attend, to express their appreciation when they want to, and thus to go back to a true tradition of concert-going, the tradition of Mozart, of Chopin, of Liszt, of Brahms...and of just about everyone else."

Fellow cheerleader, conductor Leonard Slatkin, has been arguing for the relaxation of concert etiquette for a few years: "So clap away [...] it is just fine to express yourself at a concert" ('To clap or not to clap?'). He is following in the footsteps of 'populist' conductors like Leinsdorf, Monteux and Arthur Rubinstein, who took the self-righteous view that "It's barbaric to tell people it is uncivilized to applaud something you like" (Rubinstein).

Such contentions are opinions steeped in the cultural mores of today - where nothing matters more than consumer rights and self-indulgent self-expression. In fact, this is an easy way to spot a cultural relativist. Clapping, to their way of thinking, signifies one of two things (and probably both): a 'Houghian' recognition that the concert-goer as paying customer should decide what goes, according to the supply-and-demand precepts of economic liberalism; or a 'Slatkinist' relaxing of stuffy 'elitist' rules.

But Hough and Slatkin, excellent musicians though they are, are talking out of their hats.

First of all, what are those concert-goers to do who have also paid, who want to listen to the music without the interruptions of their more self-centred neighbours? Why should the noisy ones take precedence?

Second, why reduce everything to the lowest common denominator? Why should the norms of pop concerts be aspired to by those in the realm of art music - particularly as they have nothing to do with art and everything to do with commercialism?

Thirdly, so what if it was done in Mozart's time, or if Brahms liked to hear a bit of inter-movement applause? It's deeply ironic that writers who normally say we should be moving away from how things were done a century or two ago - formality of the concert setting, for example - suddenly forget their own viewpoint when some tradition from that same past suits their argument.

Hough, Slatkin and any number of postmodern bloggers seem to have forgotten that the primary purpose of the recital or concert, the BBC Proms included (for all its 'user-friendliness'), is not for admiring musicians or conductors, but for admiring the music; to allow people to listen to works of art being realised. This sets it apart from pop or jazz concerts, where the 'music' is usually considerably less important than the 'vibe' or performance. (Emanuel Ax is another musician whose vanity appears to alter his perspective; as he wrote last year (in 'When to Applaud'): "All of us love applause, and so we should - it means that the listener LIKES us! So we should welcome applause whenever it comes.")

Art music is art, and to appreciate its beauty and complexity, its numinousness and transcendency, the listener requires mental space and time for contemplation. A deeply personal and introspective experience, in other words; why on earth, then, would anyone want the reactions of the rest of the audience foisted upon them through 'self-expressive' clapping, whooping or shrieking?

Of course, applause between movements is surely better than the spluttering and rustling and shuffling that many audience members seem almost pathologically incapable of refraining from; but would anyone seriously argue that the intrusive noise of ringing phones or outside traffic ought to be covered over in the same way?

Fortunately, for the time being, there are still many musicians (and critics, like Jonathan Lennie) who have not succumbed to the pathetic populism espoused by the likes of Slatkin, Ax and Hough. An editorial in the Daily Telegraph appearing the same day as Hough's piece spoke (metaphorically, one hopes) for many when it said "incontinent clappers should be clapped in irons."

Music as art should be appreciated inwardly, ideally in otherwise tranquil surroundings to facilitate reflection. Applause should play no part in this. The right place for showing appreciation of a performance, on the other hand, is at the very end, and after a reverent pause to allow for individual contemplation of the final bars of the music. That isn't elitism, but a show of politeness and humility.

Ironically, a reasonable case can be made for no clapping at all (indeed, Leopold Stokowski was said to have called for an end to the practice; and Hough himself recounts a compelling example). Quite apart from the obvious fact that the music itself doesn't care whether it's being applauded or not, the musicians involved are, after all, usually professionals getting well paid for playing; conductors and soloists all the more (often ridiculously more). Why should they be treated differently from, say, cleaners, nurses or teachers, who never get a public round of applause for their work?

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