and wow - maybe we should start another movement - bringing back Booing into the classical music scene? (I’d never have the heart … but I bet attendance would increase if word about those kind of shenanigans got out!)

So, should an encore be reserved for when it’s undeniable that the audience wants one? Sure! Does the performer know that from the stage? That’s uncertain. Ideally, a performer: 1) Has prepared an encore (or a few of them) , but is not overly disappointed if they don’t get a chance to play them and 2) The audience clearly is showing enthusiasm, with multiple curtain calls and cries of ‘Encore!’ (Sounds clear enough to me, anyway).

While one of these is often true, both may not be. If a performer is not 100% sure that an encore is welcome, they may be a bit too quick to return to the stage, for fear of losing the chance. On the other hand, audiences have begun to nearly always give a performance that isn’t bad a standing ovation. That’s a real shame, as it’s making standing ovations common, which is exactly what they are not supposed to be. As standing ovations get more common (and predictable), the performer may think they are standing in wait for an encore, when what they’re really doing is getting their coats on to leave.

It would be great if appreciation and reciprocation (with encores) were more definitive, but based on performers can see or here, and the lack of clarity from the audience, communications between these 2 parties are not going to get better in the near future.

Oh, and yes, audiences booed, rioted and stormed out in the 19th (and 20th) centuries. Most of the ones I’ve been to have been annoyingly polite. I do remember a concert one summer when I was a student at Tanglewood, where a conductor led the Boston Symphony in an extraordinarily slow performance of Mahler’s First Symphony. 1/2 of the audience was enthusiastically applauding what they felt was a profound and moving performance, and the other 1/2 was hissing because they found it ponderous and boring! (It was an outdoor concert, so no one stormed anywhere, and I was disappointed that there were no fisticuffs between the people who were cheering and the people who were hissing. Now that would have been a reception to remember).

I have to be careful not to fall into my old ‘music critic’ style, a job I occasionally had back when I was a grad student and for a brief period a couple years ago when we had first moved here.