“Your nation is grieving, and you are writing about some symphonies,” more grieved readers would say. But, as far as I remember myself (also before the independence), my nation was constantly grieving. Thinking or writing about this grief day and night only adds to the scope of this grief. I must immediately say that in the 19th century, it was accepted to applaud after every part of a multi-part concert and even call the author to the stage if they liked the piece of work. Later on, it (I think, rightly) was considered wrong and ugly, a phenomenon breaking the unity of the work and deviating the attention of the players. In summer, we were at the symphonic concert in the Italian city of Ravello. After every part of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto and his Symphony No. 3, some of the spectators were applauding and some were trying to prevent it by their looks and “hisses”. “Retrograde people – we said – Loris Tjeknavorian has long ago taught our audience that we should wait for the end of the work and then applaud.”
But recently, the story was repeated during the concert of the Orchestra of Tchaikovsky’s 6th Symphony conducted by Zubin Mehta. Stormy applauses were heard again in-between the parts. Either the rules are changed or the quality of our audience is dropped.
Aram ABRAHAMYAN
