Applause in live recordings

Started by 12tone., October 16, 2010, 11:45:49 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Should there be more applause in new live recordings?

Yes
6 (15%)
No
17 (42.5%)
I don't like live recordings
3 (7.5%)
I don't care
13 (32.5%)
I only buy vegetables
1 (2.5%)

Total Members Voted: 31

12tone.

This thread comes about from my asking if Abbado and the Berliners were going to finish their Mahler cycle.  It looks like they won't.

What I did like about those recordings was the applause.  Sure, the recordings were great.  The sound was great.  But what's this?  Applause at the end!  They left that in.  It sure gives a recording that extra something when the last chord hits, or everything is silent for 4 seconds or so and then everyone cheers.  It just sounds like it should be there.

But it seems this doesn't happen often.  Why is that?  For a recording, it shouldn't be too hard to include it.  How much should it take up on a cd?  An extra 30 seconds to a minute.  That's not much.  Is it to do with cost of recording? 

I think they should include it more often.

bhodges

I love to hear applause at the end of a great live recording--and that Abbado/Berlin Mahler 7th is a great example.

Another fave: Sawallisch and Philadelphia doing Richard Strauss, live in Tokyo--the performances are excellent, and the audience really lets them know it.

--Bruce

Szykneij

I'm often startled when applause comes in at the end of a well-recorded live performance. I forget that it isn't a studio production.
Men profess to be lovers of music, but for the most part they give no evidence in their opinions and lives that they have heard it.  ~ Henry David Thoreau

Don't pray when it rains if you don't pray when the sun shines. ~ Satchel Paige

petrarch

Quote from: Szykniej on October 16, 2010, 11:54:48 AM
I'm often startled when applause comes in at the end of a well-recorded live performance. I forget that it isn't a studio production.

While I have nothing against applause, sometimes I really do want a pristine studio-like recording. This is especially important for music that is quieter or has quiet passages, as very often the audience will choose precisely those occasions for some rustling or coughing.
//p
The music collection.
The hi-fi system: Esoteric X-03SE -> Pathos Logos -> Analysis Audio Amphitryon.
A view of the whole

Gurn Blanston

I hate it. I usually digitize, excise & reburn-ize recordings with applause. A case in point was the otherwise very fine Pollini/Abbado BP Beethoven concertos box set. A solid minute of it at the end of each one. A few seconds is fine; a solid minute of clapping is downright revolting. >:(

8)

----------------
Now playing:
La Magnifica Comunità - G 304 Quintet in Eb for Cello & Strings Op 27 #4 1st mvmt - Sostenuto
Visit my Haydn blog: HaydnSeek

Haydn: that genius of vulgar music who induces an inordinate thirst for beer - Mily Balakirev (1860)

12tone.

Quote from: Gurn Blanston on October 16, 2010, 05:06:48 PM
I hate it. I usually digitize, excise & reburn-ize recordings with applause. A case in point was the otherwise very fine Pollini/Abbado BP Beethoven concertos box set. A solid minute of it at the end of each one. A few seconds is fine; a solid minute of clapping is downright revolting. >:(


Abbado / BPO's applause at the end of their Mahler 3 goes on for 3:20.  Unreal.  It's a piece all it's own!

Saul

Usually the American audience makes more noise, but check out the European audiences, especially in Germany, to use Gimli's words:

"You'll find more cheer in a graveyard"...

I never understood why there has to be such coldness in these European audiences.

Scarpia

Quote from: 12tone. on October 16, 2010, 11:45:49 AM
But it seems this doesn't happen often.  Why is that?  For a recording, it shouldn't be too hard to include it.  How much should it take up on a cd?  An extra 30 seconds to a minute.  That's not much.  Is it to do with cost of recording?

It obviously costs absolutely nothing to leave the applause in.  However, record companies go to great trouble and expense to eliminate the applause.  I've read that  when recording companies release live recordings they will often schedule a separate session, sometimes during a rehearsal, to record the final bars of the piece to get a version that is free of applause that can be spliced on to the live recording. 

Daverz

What can make applause in live recordings miserable are those idiots that have to leap up and yell "Bravo!" before the last note of the Mahler 9th  (or similar piece with a transcendent ending) has faded.

If there are not such idiots, and the applause is separately tracked, I don't have a problem with it.

MDL

#9
Quote from: Daverz on October 16, 2010, 10:32:52 PM
What can make applause in live recordings miserable are those idiots that have to leap up and yell "Bravo!" before the last note of the Mahler 9th  (or similar piece with a transcendent ending) has faded.

If there are not such idiots, and the applause is separately tracked, I don't have a problem with it.

How about Tennstedt's live recording of Mahler 6 where some twunt screams "bravo!" before the final string pizzicato?

I'm referring to the recording released on the LPO's label, not the EMI recording.

DavidW

Quote from: Daverz on October 16, 2010, 10:32:52 PM
What can make applause in live recordings miserable are those idiots that have to leap up and yell "Bravo!" before the last note of the Mahler 9th  (or similar piece with a transcendent ending) has faded.

If there are not such idiots, and the applause is separately tracked, I don't have a problem with it.

Yeah I think that is the classical music equivalent of FIRST! and that is the only part of applause that irritates me.

Octo_Russ

There's always some enthusiastic nut who has to be the first to start clapping, as if it's a competition or something, the equivalent of the first one past the finishing line!, usually half a second before the last note.

Or how about applause before a work?, on Dvorak's Cello Concerto, with Mischa Maisky & Zubin Mehta on DG, you get treated on track one to 18 seconds of clapping!, there again, i guess DG were wise to give it a separate track, as you can press 2 on your CD player and cue it out, how awful that would be if it was stuck onto the first movement of the Concerto.
I'm a Musical Octopus, I Love to get a Tentacle in every Genre of Music. http://octoruss.blogspot.com/

DavidW

Oh yeah indeed octo_russ.  I think that even if we're talking a famous performer/conductor applause should be reserved for the performance itself and not simply the artist just being there.

k-k-k-kenny

I think 9-11 claps beforehand is kinda nice - a ripple of welcome. That maxes out at about 5 seconds. Any more is ostentation.
Afterwards, the longer the pause before the spell over the audience is broken by whistling, stamping of feet, "bravo" - does any anglophone use this word in any context other than to demonstrate their assumed familiarity with concert-going culture? - clapping and so on, the better.
I've posted like comment elsewhere here today, but it strikes me that those who insist on "it's MY turn to make a noise now" and leap to their feet before the performance has died away probably haven't been listening to music much in their lives, no matter how many concerts they may have attended.
And, to get to the point of the post, it's not much to listen back to at home, that's for sure. Maybe ok to whack a bit of it in, to show how that audience reacted, but in the absence of some really good jokes, it's plain tedious.

Bulldog

More applause, less, none - makes no difference to me.

Brahmsian

No problem with applause after the final movement.

What irritates me is coughing and throat clearing during the music.  Beethoven's Cello Sonatas recording on EMI (du Pre/Barenboim) is a perfect example.

Guido

I like it in opera recordings - it always sounds artificial when then quickly mute after a popular aria.
Geologist.

The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away

Spotted Horses

Quote from: geralmar on October 22, 2021, 09:55:48 PM


This set is notorious for the extended applause at the end of every symphony.  I've read speculation that the applauses were added electronically.  One commentator stated if separated out the applauses would fill an entire CD.  My suspicion is that the applauses are meant to indicate the end of a symphony if more than one are listened to in succession.  Or maybe they're intended to convince the listener that these are terrific performances.  Whatever the reason the applause is disfiguring and detracts from the performances. 

I've owned the set several years and till can't motivate myself to remove the cellophane.

The stop button on your CD player is broken?
There are simply two kinds of music, good music and the other kind. - Duke Ellington

Brahmsian

Quote from: geralmar on October 22, 2021, 09:55:48 PM


This set is notorious for the extended applause at the end of every symphony.  I've read speculation that the applauses were added electronically.  One commentator stated if separated out the applauses would fill an entire CD.  My suspicion is that the applauses are meant to indicate the end of a symphony if more than one are listened to in succession.  Or maybe they're intended to convince the listener that these are terrific performances.  Whatever the reason the applause is disfiguring and detracts from the performances. 

I've owned the set several years and till can't motivate myself to remove the cellophane.

I actually appreciate that they are on separate tracks. This is a marvelous set of Haydn symphonies.

Pohjolas Daughter

Quote from: Daverz on October 16, 2010, 10:32:52 PM
What can make applause in live recordings miserable are those idiots that have to leap up and yell "Bravo!" before the last note of the Mahler 9th  (or similar piece with a transcendent ending) has faded.

If there are not such idiots, and the applause is separately tracked, I don't have a problem with it.
I wish that more people would just let the work "breathe" at the end before applauding.  By that I mean letting the sound, echoes die out and sit there and just enjoy/feel/savor the work and performance for a while..the mood created, etc., rather than just rushing to start clapping.

PD