Alex Ross's concise history of the demise of inter-movement applause. Spoiler alert: audiences haven't always sat passively at the symphony.
Pierre Monteux: I do have one big complaint about audiences in all countries, and that is their artificial restraint from applause between movements or a concerto or symphony. I don’t know where the habit started, but it certainly does not fit in with the composers’ intentions
Pianist Ossip Gabrilowitsch to the concert-going public: It is a mistake to think you have done your part when you buy your tickets.
And from Ross himself: It’s crazy for three thousand people to sit in Carnegie Hall contemplating Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto as if it were some Buddhist monument, rather than a rousing, passionate entertainment.
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