Given standard music etiquette today, classical music is quite peculiar. Most, if not all people, view music as a natural experience, akin to dance. It causes us to move, jig, and even flail about. At a classical music concert, those would be the last things you would want to do to avoid the judgmental glares of everyone around you. Rather, you are ordered to sit still and absorb the music in utter silence. Even a cough could earn you death stares from the nearest well-dressed connoisseur.
This behavior screams pretentiousness. Why all the fuss? How can one possibly enjoy music this way?
Historically, classical music, at least outside the church, was a raucous affair. People walked around, socialized, cheered, and drank to their heart’s content. Indeed, the only way 18th-century composer George Frideric Handel could silence the crowds during his operas was to hire the biggest opera stars of the day. Even then, it was rare that the audience would lend their ears to the overtures or choruses.
Many of the symphonies that Beethoven composed nearly 100 years later, like his third and fifth, open with loud, sometimes thematically irrelevant material to tell the crowds to listen. It was not until the Wagnerian age of hero worship after the 1850s that classical music began to transform itself to the institutions we see today.
How should we treat classical music? As Handel’s audiences did, or Wagner’s? Before you scream (or cautiously whisper) one way or the other, I want to throw another heavy question your way. Why does music have etiquette? Does it facilitate something more important? I think it does, and this is why I believe, with reservation, many classical music norms should be preserved, and others should be tossed.
It’s clear why one would go to a classical music concert: to listen. While a dubstep concert at Igloofest may serve a more social function (to say the least), classical music concerts can hardly be called “social” events. They exist for the music and, secondly, the musicians. Audiences attend to listen to timeless pieces and great musicians. Any etiquette that would detract from this purpose would, therefore, be poor etiquette.
What does that mean? Well, talking during the piece would not be great. Dancing would distract even from the most dance-like Brahmsian dance. Even screaming or cheering during a particularly virtuosic passage to support a soloist would be a crime. Sexual objectification should, ideally, be kept out of the symphony hall as well.
That said, I must address the features of the classical music world that give it an extra elitist flavour. Though dressing up is a way of showing respect, in classical music it has become excessive and has deteriorated into a fashion show. It no longer serves—perhaps never served—as a function for the music itself. It has become a contest akin to Monty Python’s Upper-Class Twit of the Year, but not nearly as funny. It’s enjoyable to play dress up, but as I watch others compliment and scoff at clothing over cocktails during intermission, I can’t help but feel, despite my sincere passion for classical music, completely out of place.
This condescending attitude extends to other parts of the concert as well. As many first-timers unpleasantly discover amidst the harsh shushing, one is not supposed to clap between movements. Some may argue that clapping interrupts the piece, even if the movements are broken up by musicians adjusting their stands and audience members coughing.
That is rubbish. If anything, the rude shushing is inappropriate. More importantly however, enthusiasm for the music when it does not disturb it serves to honour the music and the musicians more than the silent, passive experience.
So, am I condoning the Handel-model? Not completely. A Wagnerian one? In some respects. Classical music has tremendous cultural value, as do many other musical genres. However, classical music must stand out as one that exists to serve its own music alone, and not its high-class practitioners.
–Akiva Toren
