Sit down and shut up.

Seattle Weekly has an article in its latest issue which dares to suggest that there actually might not be anything wrong with the way classical music is presented in concert halls. Author Gavin Borchert acknowledges that there seems to be near-constant griping these days that the staid formality of our genre is a relic of a past era, and fails to take into account current social customs and concertgoing trends. But, he objects...

A couple of things puzzle me. First, the classical concert experience is, in all essentials, identical to that of dance, theater, literary events, or for that matter—barring the munching of popcorn and cheering the fireball deaths of villains—movies. Go to the performance space, buy a ticket, sit down in rows, watch and listen, try not to disturb your fellow audience members. Yet it's only in conjunction with concerts that you hear complaints about what a crushing burden this all is. Second, why is sitting quietly considered such an unendurable ordeal?

I think Borchart is on to something here, and I say that as someone who regularly decries what I see as a silly and mindless orchestral devotion to certain 19th-century traditions. (Exhibit A) It's long bothered me that many of the withering criticisms aimed at classical music (in particular, the idea that playing music from the past somehow makes us irrelevant to the present) are not considered valid when applied to, say, theater. (Imagine how silly it would sound if critics in the UK were to start lambasting the Royal Shakespeare Company for not doing enough plays by Tony Kushner!) And while I am all for shaking orchestras out of our sometimes sleepy patterns when it serves a larger purpose, I'm baffled by those who argue that the concert experience would be improved by people milling about and talking while we play.

Setting aside for a moment the inescapable fact that we perform, without amplification, in concert halls that are designed to bounce the maximum amount of sound around a huge room, I just don't get what walking and talking would add to the audience's experience. I sincerely doubt that anyone is really itching to socialize during a performance, in any case (that's why we have dinner and drinks with our friends before and/or after a show, isn't it?) and honestly, the only reason people talk instead of whispering at First Ave or the Fine Line is because the music is so damn loud! Besides, if you think back to the last time you saw a band you really like at some local bar, I'll bet you can remember being annoyed by that couple in front of you who spent the whole time shouting into each other's ears and ignoring the music. Because you're there for the music, and if you aren't, you should be somewhere else.

After citing a few recent examples of "alternative" classical performances he's attended, Borchert concludes:

Maybe people behave the way they do at concerts not because it's an artificial standard imposed by ironclad tradition but because the music sounds better that way. Maybe listeners feel classical music most deeply when they pay quiet attention to it. Maybe sometimes not clapping is OK, and we don't need to rush in and obliterate every silence.

I know it's heresy these days to suggest that America's symphony orchestras are doing anything at all correctly, but I couldn't agree more.