Concert hall etiquette
Cohering with the idea of listening as absorption, the concert hall is an instrument of discipline and control imposing a strict set of behavioural rules on concertgoers. Such historical practices are projected on the way concertgoers are expected to behave and listen at today's classical concerts performed in concert halls. Contemporary concert etiquette demands moderation, silence and attentive listening from concertgoers. This rational set of behavioural rules is elemental to notions of high-culture music.
In his work of analyzing the power of crowds, Elias Canetti (1962) identifies the concert's public as a stagnating crowd. This specific type of crowd is characterized by close compression, making it impossible to move freely and giving rise to a collective feeling of pressure. While stagnation in, for instance, the theatre has become more of a rite and has become natural behaviour, concert hall behaviour greatly differs as it requires a long and artificial training in stagnation in order to suppress outward reactions:
"Here everything depends on the audience being completely undisturbed; any movement is frowned on, any sound taboo. Though the music performed draws a good part of its life from its rhythm, no rhythmical effect of any sort on the listeners must be perceptible" (Canetti, 1962, p. 37).
It appears to be a paradox that the music is meant to touch and stir concertgoers' deepest emotion, yet at the same time they are not permitted to show any physical evidence of this experience. Gert Geluk, former manager of Communication and Marketing at the Limburgs Symfonie Orkest and head of Communication and Marketing Philharmonie Zuidnederland, explains that the intrinsic experience of reflection and retrospection are crucial aspects of attending a concert in a concert hall. This process of internalization may take a couple of extra seconds to sink in, explaining that applause does not immediately follow the end of a piece. Geluk compares these intense emotionally charged moments to falling in love with someone for the first time, creating an almost transcendent feeling. During the applause and standing ovation, the moment of discharge, concertgoers are allowed to express these feelings, causing a standing ovation and applause sometimes to last for fifteen minutes (Geluk, Interview, May 7, 2014).
For newcomers, the strict behavioural rules governing the concert hall may seem foreign. The amount of social control in the concert hall may cause what sociologist Cas Smithuijsen dubs concert hall anxiety. Once a newcomer overcomes this social-psychological threshold and adapts to the set of behavioural rules of the context of the concert hall, the concertgoer becomes accepted and the behaviour will eventually become second nature. Smithuijsen notes that frequent concertgoers are often unaware of the specific set of rules that only make sense in the context of the concert hall (Smithuijsen, 2001, p. 124). When specifically asked for advice on concert behaviour do's and don'ts Geluk recalls the advice he gave to his children when he asked them to accompany him to the opera later this year: "Turn off your cell phone, be on time and copy your fellow concertgoers' applauding behaviour to prevent clapping during the performances' 'natural' silent moments" (G. Geluk, Interview, May 7, 2014).
The greatest nuisances during today's classical concerts are ringing mobile phones and coughing. Smithuijsen highlights that during the 1990s coughing in Amsterdam's Concertgebouw led to a tremendous media discussion about concert etiquette. Many newspaper editorials dealt with concertgoers' complaints about other guests' lack of respect for the music. Oftentimes concertgoers would cough in between the breaks of a sonata or symphony. The silence between these pieces, however, is perceived as a crucial part of the musical experience and disturbance in these breaks is considered to be rude (Smithuijsen, 2001, p. 121). Acknowledging that it makes sense that such disturbances can and will occur during live performances, Geluk underlines the importance of moments of silence during a concert and remarks that people should cough during hundred decibel passages instead of breaking the spell during the most fragile parts of a piece. Geluk jokingly adds: "During these silent moments it is better to suffer a silent death, than to stand up rasping and coughing to leave the concert hall" (G. Geluk, Interview, May 7, 2014).
Social intermingling and behaviour (pleasure gardens)
Scholarly work on pleasure gardens often emphasizes the intermingling of social classes at pleasure gardens; an important aspect adding to the popularity of these venues (Aspden, 2002; Conlin, 2006). The mingling of ranks was part of an ideology of education for the masses by involving a broad range of classes in polite society, a development which was perceived as essential to the state's social and constitutional health (Conlin, 2006, p. 722). Furthermore, the legacy of pleasure gardens is sought in the democratization of elitist activities and the creation of a collective sense of national identity (Aspden, 2002). Historian Hannah Greig, however, asserts that in spite of pleasure gardens' appearance of inclusivity, social exclusivity was constantly practiced and maintained in popular locations such as Vauxhall Gardens and Ranelagh Gardens: "Parading only with their equals, repeating visits week after week, using particular parts of the garden at particular times of day, the titled elite used the gardens in distinctive ways" (Greig, 2012, p. 53). First, Greig notes that pleasure gardens such as Bath and Tunbridge Wells were equipped with distinct walks. The commoners paraded at the lower walks, while the elite utilized the upper promenades. For her case study on social practices in Vauxhall and Ranelagh Gardens Greig analysed newspaper articles, private letters and diaries of tourists and Vauxhall and Ranelagh frequenters.
Entrance to the pleasure gardens was affordable to a broad audience. A ticket for Vauxhall Gardens cost one shilling and Ranelagh charged its visitors two shillings. Greig notes however, that in contrast to the cheap entrance tickets, refreshments were over-priced. Supping at pleasure gardens was an elitist activity and the special supper boxes were an unknown territory for commoners. Guests occupying the supper boxes could hire garden musicians to play at their table (Cowgill, 2012). Moreover, the pleasure gardens' subscription tickets were pricy and only the elite could afford seasonal tickets. Members of the upper classes usually visited the pleasure gardens a couple of times a week, as these venues were often visited by the elite to sup after the opera was over (Southgate, 1911). The majority of London's pleasure gardens opened in late April and the city's elite routinely frequented the gardens until the end of June, when the upper class traded in the city for the country, causing a rift in the social compilation of the gardens' visitors. Furthermore, the elite preferred to visit the gardens during weekdays and remarked in their diaries that the pleasure garden's public during Sundays "was more of a bear garden than a rational place of resort" (Greig, 2012, p. 70) and opted to avoid the audience of commoners instead.
In spite of the many curiosities and high art found in the pleasure gardens, Greig remarks that the elite did not seem to be concerned with that in their journals. The majority of their accounts strongly emphasize the desire to mingle and promenade with members of their own class, seeking out good company, making it highly improbable that members of different classes would mix and mingle in these venues (Greig, 2012). Thus, Greig concludes that in a sense the pleasure gardens' public was "All together, yet all distinct": "Through repeated visits, the use of specific spaces of the gardens at specific times of day, and by effectively flaunting impenetrable circles of acquaintance, the elite commandeered these public sites in a way that reinforced rather than reduced their claims to social separation" (Greig, 2012, p. 72).
In this fantasy world visitors were not mere spectators, but actors as well: "Here autovoyeurism was the central activity, indulged in consciously and deliberately by men and women of different generations and social classes. It was closely associated with role play and illusion" (Conlin, 2006, p. 719). The pleasure garden's visual culture additionally entailed flirtation and courtship: "That Vauxhall's walks and shades were heavy with sexual tension made it a place for 'intrigue, "play" and experimenting with social roles" (Ogborn, 1997, p. 452). The sexually charged glances of men gazing at women and vice versa were accepted as a part of the visual pleasures the venues had on offer.
Gould, technology, and a new conception of "audience"
In “Let's Ban Applause”, Glenn Gould proposes exactly what the rather provocative title of this essay suggests; that we work toward achieving “the gradual but total elimination of audience response” (Page, 1984, p. 246). Gould's distaste for the live audience may be seen as a manifestation of his larger aversion to the live concert setting. In Gould's eyes, there is little that is admirable about the kind of musical culture that the live setting encourages. It appeared to foster, on the one hand, self-indulgent, egotistical performers more concerned with pandering to the whims of a volatile audience than the attainment of musical perfection, and on the other hand, a boorish audience that experienced music as a mere “momentary ejection of adrenaline” and reacted to it in the form of “shallow, externalized, public manifestations” (Page, 1984, p. 246). The live audience was engaged with music only in the most superficial sense, Gould thought, and their presence furthermore posed a distraction for the performer.
In contrast to this, new technological innovations, in Gould’s view, promised to promote on a broad scale exactly what he saw as proper engagement with music. With innovations such as the radio or the record player, listening to music no longer had to take place as a public event, compelling attendees to partake in all of the arbitrary social and extramusical norms associated with it. There would no longer be a place for clapping or jeering. Instead, listening to music would become a quieter and much more private affair, taking place within the confines of each individual’s home, and allowing for “each man contemplatively create his own divinity” (Page, 1984, p. 246).
Along with new ways of engaging with music, technology also presented the
possibility of redefining the role of the audience (as well as, necessarily, that of the artist, and their relationship to each other). By playing music using his or her own personal hi-fi equipment, the listener could exercise a degree of creative control unattainable through the live setting. Gould saw the ability to do simple acts of “dial twiddling” (Page, 1984, p.), such as to adjust the music’s volume, as an already “interpretative act” that was only the beginning of a range of “participational possibilities” (Page, 1984, p. 347) that would eventually be accorded to the listener. No longer at the mercy of the physical presence and interpretative preferences of the live performer, the listener would at long last be accorded the power to realize his or her own musical inclinations.
Ultimately, Gould hoped that the widespread adoption of recording technology and mechanical audio devices would blur the dividing line between the artist and the audience. Both sides would take on a more appropriate and active role in the production of music; the artist could safely concentrate on making the best recording (s)he possibly could, away from the immediate judgment of an audience, while the audience could decide for themselves when, where, and what they wanted to hear.