A Guide to your First Classical Music Concert
Wed 18 Sep 2024The beginning
The concert will start with the leader (the violinist sitting closest to the conductor) walking on stage, followed by the conductor. The audience will applaud them to welcome them on. There will also be applause later on if a soloist comes on stage. The orchestra will watch the leader and the conductor during the concert to know when to make a sound.
Information about the orchestra
There are four sections to the orchestra – woodwind (e.g. flutes, clarinet), brass (e.g. trumpets, french horns), strings (e.g. violins, cellos) and percussion (e.g. timpani, xylophone). The size of the orchestra depends on the piece of music. Often the more modern a piece, the larger the orchestra.
The conductor communicates their wishes for a piece to the orchestra such as the tempo (speed) and dynamics (volume) by making gestures. They also use body language to give cues or indicate how they would like certain musicians to play a particular section of the music.
The type of music you may hear at a Philharmonia concert
- Symphony: A musical composition for full orchestra. It usually has four movements (but can also have three) and different sections where the mood and tempo (speed) of the music changes.
- Concerto: A musical composition for a solo instrument, accompanied by an orchestra. It usually has three movements – traditionally a fast movement (presto/allegro), then a slow movement (described as lento/adagio) followed by another fast movement.
- Suite: Originally a suite was a set of orchestral pieces to pair dance tunes together. However, when it was revived in the 19th century (after not being as popular as the symphony/concerto), it took on the form of presenting extracts of ballets, incidental music from plays, operas, films and now even video games together at the same time.
You may also hear:
- Overture: The first piece of an opera, usually presenting some key musical themes that will return throughout the whole show. These are played by an orchestra before any singing starts to happen. This is therefore usually in the form of one singular movement.
- Tone poem: A piece of orchestral music that tells a story, usually based on a poem, painting or other artistic/narrative source. They usually have just one singular movement and are intended to inspire audiences to imagine a scene, mood or image rather than to follow rules on traditional musical forms.
When to clap
Traditionally, audiences don’t clap between movements of a symphony or concerto, and just at the end of the whole piece. As an example, it would look a little like this for the following concert:
Sibelius The Oceanides (a tone poem)
The orchestra play one movement – clap!
Grieg Piano Concerto
Movement 1 – Allegro molto moderato (13 mins)
Movement 2 – Adagio (7 mins)
Movement 3 – Allegro moderato molto e marcato (10 mins) – clap!
Sibelius Symphony No. 3
Movement 1 – Allegro moderato (12 mins)
Movement 2 – Andantino con moto, quasi allegretto (11 mins)
Movement 3 – Moderato (9 mins) – clap!
Audiences will also clap to welcome a soloist, conductor and orchestra leader on stage. You can also shout bravo, brava (for a woman) or bravi (plural) if you really enjoyed a performance.
What to listen for?
- How are the musicians playing (e.g. for strings: pizzicato – short snappy notes, or legato – long and smooth. For brass: with a mute in the end of the instrument to change the sound?)
- Can you hear who is playing the melody (if there is one) and who is acting as accompaniment? E.g. the flute is playing a solo whilst the strings play quietly to accompany them.
- What character does the music have? Is it dance-like, reflective, melodic like a song?
- Is the music major (happy sounding), minor (sad sounding)? Is it dissonant (complex and clashy) or is there more traditional (“normal sounding”) harmony used instead?
- What images does the piece conjure up for you? Often there is a story behind a piece, and there are certain qualities that make a particular composer’s music recognisable – even music based on a particular country can have a distinctive sound – but at the end of the day, music is all about interpretation and the way it makes us feel.