Performing through history

doi:10.1017/CBO9780511811739.002

1 - Performing through history

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012

Colin Lawson

Edited by

John Rink

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Colin Lawson: Affiliation:
Pro Vice-Chancellor and Dean of the Faculty of Music, Media and Creative Technologies, Thames Valley University
John Rink: Affiliation:
Royal Holloway, University of London

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Summary

Performance in context

At most classical concerts today we expect the audience to remain silent in rapt attention, but this is a quite recent social phenomenon, far removed from music-making of any kind before the beginning of the twentieth century. At the premiere of his ‘Paris’ Symphony in July 1778, Mozart was delighted by a respectful audience which nevertheless responded actively rather than passively:

Just in the middle of the first Allegro there was a passage which I felt sure must please. The audience were quite carried away – and there was a tremendous burst of applause … Having observed that all last as well as first Allegros begin here with all the instruments playing together and generally unisono, I began mine with two violins only, piano for the first eight bars – followed instantly by a forte; the audience, as I expected, said ‘hush’ at the soft beginning, and when they heard the forte, began at once to clap their hands.

More than a century later, a painting now in the archives of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden shows the inaugural concert of London's Queen's Hall in 1893; conductor and orchestra are in full flight, yet conversation is also flowing freely in the front rows of the audience. Less controlled was the celebrated riotous premiere of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring in Paris in 1913, one of the last documented instances of active audience response within the Western concert tradition.

Type: Chapter
Information: Musical Performance
A Guide to Understanding
, pp. 3 - 16

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511811739.002 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2002

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References

Brown, Howard Mayer and Stanley Sadie (eds.), Performance Practice, 2 vols. (London: Macmillan, 1989)

Haskell, Harry, The Early Music Revival: A History (London: Thames and Hudson, 1988)

Kenyon, Nicholas (ed.), Authenticity and Early Music (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1988)

Lawson, Colin and Robin Stowell, The Historical Performance of Music: An Introduction(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999)

Myers, Helen (ed.), Ethnomusicology: Historical and Regional Studies (London: Macmillan, 1993)

Raynor, Henry, A Social History of Music from the Middle Ages to Beethoven (New York: Taplinger, 1978)

Raynor, Henry, Music and Society since 1815 (New York: Taplinger, 1978)