In concerts, what matters more than anything else is the absence of any disturbance. Every movement is excluded, every noise blamed. While the music being performed lives largely through its own rhythm, nothing of its rhythmic effect on the listeners should be felt.
The affective reactions aroused by music in a continuous exchange are of the most varied and intense types. It is excluded that they are not perceived by most of those present, and it is excluded that they are not perceived simultaneously by everyone. However, all external reactions are missing. People remain seated motionless, as if they managed to feel nothing. Evidently, a long artistic education in stillness has been necessary, an education whose results have become habitual to us. Observing uninhibitedly, there are few events in our cultural life as astonishing as concert audiences. People who experience music in a "natural" way behave quite differently; and those who had never heard music before might fall into the most unrestrained excitement when experiencing it for the first time. When sailors disembarking performed the Marseillaise before the natives of Tasmania, the latter expressed their excitement with strange contortions and astonishing gestures, to the point of forcing the sailors to writhe with laughter. One particularly enthusiastic young man tore out his hair, scratched his head with both hands, and repeatedly let out loud cries.
A miserable remnant of physical discharge has also survived in our concerts. Applause is offered as thanks to the performers: a short and chaotic noise in exchange for a long and well-organized one. If applause is entirely lacking, people leave quietly just as they were sitting; they are already so immersed in the sphere of religious contemplation.
From that sphere, the quiet of the concert originally derives.
(from Mass and Power by Elias Canetti)
K
Kappa
Member
Reply 2 by Kappa
Posts
146
Viola wrote:
A wretched remnant of physical discharge has survived even in our concerts. Applause is offered as thanks to the performers: a short and chaotic noise in exchange for a long and well-organized one. If applause is missing entirely, one quietly departs just as one was sitting; since one is already immersed in the sphere of religious contemplation.
From that sphere originates the quiet of the concert.
It's a problem I've been asking myself often lately, and this is because I now go to concerts with my 13-year-old son and, contrary to what one might think, he is much more bigoted and fundamentalist than me on the matter.
It often happens to me, when listening to very well-known and beloved pieces, that I hum very softly, move my head or hands to the rhythm of the music, and let out heavy sighs. More than once I have been severely reprimanded by my offspring because, according to him, everyone is looking at me.
Baah!
Once, while listening to "Meditations" from Massenet's Thaïs, my identification with the piece was such that at a certain point I couldn't help but applaud - otherwise I would have burst before the final bars. Afterwards, I would have buried myself, but... the damage was already done.
In Turin last year, Marco Angius conducted the OSN in the performance of Notations, plus Messiaen and Webern... generally at these concerts the audience is rather disinterested and rowdy; before and during the intermission they play electronic music and this audience is more interested in that than in the actual event in the hall but... probably Angius's magnetism was perceived by the audience (myself included) and a rigorous silence was created, something that had never happened at Rai Nuova Musica (or at least I have never attended one of these concerts without there being much more noise than usual). I expected that Webern's dynamics would be lost in the chatter or that everything would go from ppp------<ppp, but instead... great Angius!
As for me, a few years ago I heard Emanuel Ax play Schönberg's three op. 11 pieces.
He cunningly placed them in the middle of the concert, between a classical sonata and a romantic one; well, I must say that a good 90% of the audience was not particularly enthusiastic about it
V
Viola
Member
Reply 7 by Viola
Posts
191
micamahler wrote:
In Turin last year, Marco Angius conducted the OSN in the performance of Notations, plus Messiaen and Webern... generally at these concerts the audience is rather disinterested and rowdy; before and during the intermission they play electronic music and this audience is more interested in that than in the event in the hall but... probably Angius's magnetism was perceived by the audience (myself included) and a rigorous silence was created, something that had never happened at Rai Nuova Musica (or at least I have never attended one of these concerts without there being much more noise than usual). I expected that Webern's dynamics would be lost in the chatter or that everything would pass from ppp------<emp while instead... great Angius!
I have run out of LIKEs available. But how many are there? I don't think I have abused them.
LIKE also to Micamahler, to whom I offer my apologies for having disrespected his nickname (is that how it's said?); both little laughs had quite irritated me.
Offering one's apologies is always an honorable act.
Sciarrino, wherever you put him, he always makes his very [porchissima]* impression.
I am obviously on the side of physical reactions, even if... last year we toured with Dido and Aeneas with Bonizzoni and La Risonanza. Returning from Amsterdam, where I smoked marijuana for the second time and where the concert hall ceiling could be raised and lowered to increase reverberation (...), we also sang in Genoa at the Carlo Felice, where they couldn't even find a stool for the double bassist (... ... ...). Anyway, a hundredth of a second after the final note, the thunderous applause broke out, and we were furious, because I don't know if you know how Purcell's Dido and Aeneas ends. Well, sometimes the stage keeps you moving forward in a bubble, because you rarely truly hear the noises of the hall, and when you finally emerge from this pool of sound, the cold air of the final applause almost annoys you. The cadence must be quite long, so you start to get used to it, and a few seconds of silence isn't bad :-)
V
Viola
Member
Reply 10 by Viola
Posts
191
thallo wrote:
No matter where you put Sciarrino, he always makes a very poor impression.
I am obviously on the side of physical reactions, even if ... last year we toured Dido and Aeneas with Bonizzoni and La Risonanza. On the return from Amsterdam, where I smoked marijuana for the second time and where the concert hall ceiling could be raised and lowered to increase the reverb (...),
________
... are you sure it wasn't an effect of the marijuana?
________
we also sang in Genoa at the Carlo Felice, where they couldn't find a stool for the double bassist (... ... ...). Anyway, a hundredth of a second after the end of the last note, the thunderous applause broke out, and we were extremely angry, because I don't know if you are aware of how Purcell's Dido and Aeneas ends. Well, sometimes the stage makes you move forward in a bubble, because rarely do you truly hear the noises of the hall, and when you finally emerge from this pool of sound, the cold air of the final applause almost annoys you. The cadence must be quite long, so you start to get used to it, and a few seconds of silence isn't bad :-)
