About Those Rituals

One would have thought this issue would have long been a dead-because-wrongheaded one by now, but no such luck. On his blog, On The Record, Henry Fogel writes:

I've written before about the sense of formality in today's classical music concert world — a formality that sometimes borders on rigidity. No applause between movements is one of my favorite symbols for this problem, though the white tie and tails of orchestra musicians runs a close second. This ritual-like atmosphere, which to some degree can enhance a concert experience, can also, if overdone, make it a less-than-welcoming experience for those new to the music. That is especially true, I think, of younger people who have grown up in a society that has moved away from some of these rituals...

I would never advocate a return to the "good old days" of the 19th-century concert. But a good look at that era shows us how huge the distance is between then and now, and I wonder if at least some degree of the more relaxed atmosphere of the past might not be a good [sic] thing.

On one hand, it’s encouraging to learn from the above that Mr. Fogel rejects the imbecile, postmodern equalitarian, pop-culture besotted notion of a return to the vulgar concert-hall etiquette of the first three-quarters of the 19th century (and I gather, by extension, also the even more vulgar concert-hall etiquette of the middle-to-late 18th). On the other, it’s discouraging to learn that, like most writers on this subject, Mr. Fogel — a man who should know better — still has yet to get it.

Get what?, you might ask, and well you might. The answer is, get a grasp on the understanding that the largely tacit “rituals” of concert-hall etiquette that have prevailed for the last 100 years or so have evolved in fair measure precisely as a response to the attendance at classical music concerts of new and/or classical-music-ignorant concertgoers. Were concert hall audiences guaranteed to be made up strictly of informed classical music concertgoers, such “rituals” would be entirely unnecessary as everyone would know, for instance, when applause was appropriate between movements — say, after a particularly excellent reading of, say, the first movement of, say, the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto — and when it was manifestly inappropriate — say, after the second movement of, say, the Beethoven Symphony No. 3. And no-one would need the orchestra players dressed in white tie and tails to intimate to him semiotically that a well-executed concert of great classical music is a special event that promises to lift him above and beyond the quotidian cares and concerns of his ordinary existence but requires his full and focused attention in order to fulfill that promise. A musically informed concertgoer would know all that as a matter of course, and need no semiotic reminder.

As long as we have the possibility of attendance at classical music concerts of a fair number of the classical music ignorant, so long will those largely tacit “rituals” of concert hall etiquette need to remain in force, and be enforced by any means required, very much including, but certainly not limited to, the often- and unjustly-maligned shush.