The Concert Ritual

Every kind of music has its rituals. We need ritual to help the performers and the audience get into a musical frame of mind, and to contain the power released by the music.

My wife and I took some friends to a symphony concert. They had never been in a concert hall before, and scarcely knew what to pay attention to! They were amused by the audience's clothes, dazzled by the chandeliers, and confused by the human traffic onstage -- all that entering, exiting, bowing, standing up, sitting down. While we were clapping after the first piece, the conductor turned to the audience, bowed, and left the stage. "Where's he going?"my friend asked with some concern.

The rituals for classical music can be confusing. They have developed over hundreds of years, in many different countries, and date back to societies that were very different from our own. Concert rituals aren't always the same, but here is an idea about what to expect:

In an orchestra, the leader of the violin section is called the concertmaster. Often the concertmaster stays backstage until the rest of the orchestra is ready to begin. Then the concertmaster comes onstage and takes a bow as the audience claps. The concertmaster turns to the orchestra, a tuning note is sounded, and the musicians tune their instruments. The audience should stay quiet during tuning.

Next the conductor comes onstage. As the audience applauds, the conductor may invite the orchestra to stand up to share in the applause. The conductor shakes hands with the concertmaster as representative of the orchestra.

As the players sit back down, the conductor turns toward them (away from the audience), and begins the music. You won't see the front of the conductor again until the first piece is over. That may be a short time, or it may be more than an hour.

The music may start and stop a few times within one piece of music, but when the whole piece is over, the audience claps, and the conductor turns toward the audience to accept the applause.

Then the conductor leaves the stage. As long as the applause keeps going, the conductor will keep coming back onto the stage to bow and receive the applause. He or she may ask the orchestra or individual players to stand to share the applause.

After all of this clapping and bowing, entering and exiting, the conductor finally ends up offstage, while the orchestra and audience get ready for the next piece. Sometimes some furniture has to be rearranged, or some players have to be added or subtracted.

Eventually, when everybody is ready, the conductor will come onstage again to lead the next piece. If there is a featured soloist, he or she will walk onstage with the conductor, and you might notice the conductor staying a bit more in the background during the applause, allowing the soloist to be the focus of the audience's attention.

In a chamber music concert or a recital, there is usually no conductor, so the musicians do all the bowing and walking in and out.

The orchestra for opera and ballet is usually not onstage, but in the orchestra pit in front of the stage. In this setting, the concertmaster doesn't usually make a special entrance. After the orchestra has tuned, the audience claps for the arrival, in the pit, of the conductor.

Opera and ballet have lots of quirky rituals. The most surprising ritual is that the story may be interrupted without warning for the taking of bows. The performers may break character to accept the applause, or they may freeze while the audience claps, and then return to the action.

When the curtain comes down at intermission time, the main performers often come through the curtain to take a bow.

Most concerts have an intermission in the middle'a chance for performers and audience to take a break. The musicians leave the stage; you may leave your seat.

If all the clapping and bowing at a classical concert seems peculiar, it might help to think of a concert as an energy exchange. The musicians send out musical energy, which the audience receives. At the end of a piece, it is time for the audience to give something back by clapping, and time for the musicians to receive it, by bowing.

An audience can show extra enthusiasm for the performers by standing up while they applaud. You may shout "bravo!" if you like. (To be politically and grammatically correct, shout "brava!"for a female performer, and "bravi!"[BRAH-vee] for a group.)

As a musician, I love it when the audience gets excited and makes a big racket at clapping time. I don't care whether they shout the correct word, or shout "Yeah!"or whistle, or do a teen scream. (Watch out though: I hear that in some European cities, whistling means disapproval.)

Nowadays people are very polite at classical music concerts, but just a couple of generations ago things were much wilder. A new composition could cause a riot, or its composer might be carried through the streets in triumph. Even today, singers at a certain Italian opera house have to be ready to dodge produce thrown by the audience.

In my opinion, a bit more passion would enliven our concert life. Go ahead and let the performers know that you care about what they have done: clap or shout or boo with gusto.