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People often ask whether classical music has become too serious. I sometimes wonder whether it is serious enough. Certainly, it has acquired a veneer of solemnity, but too often that veneer is a cover for business as usual. I dream of the concert hall becoming a more vital, unpredictable environment, in thrall to the wildly diverse personalities of composers and performers alike. The great paradox of modern musical life, whether in the classical or pop arena, is that we both worship our idols and, in a way, straitjacket them. We consign them to cruelly specific roles: a certain rock band is expected to loosen us up, a certain composer is expected to ennoble us. Ah, Mozart; yeah, rock and roll. But what if a rock band wants to make us think and a composer wants to make us dance? Music should be a place where our expectations are shattered.
-Alex Ross, The Guardian, 3/8/10
 The above quote is by music writer Alex Ross, in London last week to give a lecture at the Royal Philharmonic Society. It is one I plan on saving and revisiting often. Ross published a version of his lecture in The Guardian, in which he traces the development of the "no applause rule," that odd, unspoken dictum requiring audiences to hold their applause until the final movement of a work at classical concerts. It can be painfully counter-intuitive: just two weeks ago, Stephen Hough gave a breathtaking performance of the first movement of the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Madison Symphony. It took everything I had to hold back my applause, and I know I was not alone.
Ross is dead-on in his analysis, and not surprisingly brings the conversation around to the broader problems facing classical music. I do wish, though, that he pointed to opera as one example of a classical music experience that does not stifle the audience's impulses: applause, shouts of "bravo" and an array of reactions are still expected throughout an opera performance.
On Twitter, reactions to Ross's actual lecture seemed mix. As Tom Service's blog hints at, there was a feeling that most of Ross's ideas for altering the concert format have already been done: "better, more focused lighting (not more, but less! – making the hall darker to concentrate better on what's happening on stage), talks before and after concerts, gigs taking place in intimate club or salon-style surroundings, invitations from the podium for people to applaud whenever they want." Service is right that these suggestions are not groundbreaking (myself and plenty of others are spouting similar ideas), but they are certainly not yet widely practiced . It's good that Ross rehashed them, especially in such a venue as the Royal Philharmonic Society.
There's been plenty of buzz about Ross's article and lecture all week. Hopefully the right people are paying attention.
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