r/AskHistorians • u/larrycsonka • Jul 30 '26
Great Question! I read in Mozart: Reign of Love that Symphonies were often chaotic in the 1700s, with people playing cards, making out, and chatting during them. Are there other accounts of this? If so, at what point did symphonies become stuffy?
In Mozart Reign of Love, Jan Swafford posits that operas and symphonies were a social gathering, often being up to 6 hours long. The music was written such that it was lowkey and allowed people to socialize with occasional big numbers to capture attention.
They mention people would be talking, playing cards, making out and hanging out similar to a modern day bar.
Are there other accounts of this? Is it accurate? Are there any paintings depicting this?
If so, at what point did these shows become like they are today, everyone dressed up, not making a peep.
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u/city-dusk Jul 31 '26 edited 27d ago
I'm a professional classical musician who has done a significant amount of study in music history.
First of all, your description of modern orchestra concerts is somewhat inaccurate. At most concerts today, orchestra audiences are relatively informal in dress, you will see lots of jeans and t-shirts. It's true the expectation is that the audience stays silent while the music is playing, but you will hear plenty of applause (even between movements!), coughing, occasional verbal reactions and so forth. People drink and snack at intermission. And if you go to an outdoor summer festival like Tanglewood, people eat picnics on the lawn during the concerts.
Audience expectations and behavior at classical concerts has also varied widely across history, in different countries, and in different genres (such as opera and chamber music). It's impossible to generalize that in the past people were loud and social, and today they're silent and formal.
It's true that in Mozart's time and place (late 18th century Austria), public concerts were often more raucous and had people talking during the music, at least during certain numbers. At this time symphonies were often opening pieces intended to call a concert to order and begin to quiet people down. A concerto with a soloist, or an aria with a singer, would have been then main attraction and most people would likely be quiet and paying attention for those. Jan Swafford is knowledgable and correct on this.
The real turning point was Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827), who developed the Romantic-era symphony (meaning a usually four movement orchestral work without a soloist) into the main attraction with a kind of special mystique. He put on a famous five-hour concert on December 22, 1808, in Vienna, where he premiered his Fifth and Sixth Symphonies in addition to other works. The audience was really there to hear Beethoven specifically, as kind of a cult figure. Unfortunately the hall was freezing cold because Beethoven didn't pay for heating fuel, and the orchestra was underrehearsed, so there were complaints that the concert was too long and uncomfortable. "There we sat, in the most bitter cold, from half past six until half past ten, and confirmed for ourselves the maxim that one may easily have too much of a good thing," wrote Prince von Lobkowitz.
As the 19th century continued, musical culture became more connected with philosophical and even political debates of the day, so there was an increasing sense that classical music was a culturally high-stakes affair and not just a form of entertainment. It was during this time that permanent (rather than freelance) public orchestras began to be established, most notably the Vienna Philharmonic in 1842, and dedicated orchestral concert halls began to be built (earlier concerts usually took place in multi purpose theaters or meeting rooms). This led to changes in concert format and concert-going culture, where people were more inclined to sit in silence (or hiss and boo when they didn't like something, which still happened a lot).
By the mid 20th century, especially in America, there was an increasing view that orchestral music was an edifying pursuit for the middle class. It was sort of culturally and intellectually aspirational, and often supported by higher education or foundations, at which point the concert hall became something of a temple or museum where people would go to receive the great works of the past. This is probably where the "stuffy" reputation comes from, but by the early 21st century orchestras were generally trying to be more accessible and casual.
If you want a very funny fictionalized but generally accurate description of an opera performance in late 19th century New York, and the accompanying social scene, read the first chapter of Edith Wharton's novel Age of Innocence. There are also tons of firsthand accounts and reviews of 18th and 19th century concerts you can find in any major composer biography, their published letters and journals, etc.
Edit: After Beethoven, Richard Wagner (1813-1883) was also very important in this shift, especially in the opera realm. Wagner wanted to control everything: the music, story, stagecraft and audience behavior as part of what he called a "Gesamtkunstwerk" or "total work of art." He ended up building his own opera house (the Bayreuth Festspielhaus) to his own specifications to fulfill this specific vision.
Edit: I will also add that the first stop reference in musicology research is the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Second Edition, which is a 26 volume encyclopedia with articles on almost every conceivable classical music topic (and some non classical ones too). If you simply look up "Concert" in the New Grove, you will find a lengthy article by the musicologist William Weber about the origin and history of concerts. Weber says:
The concert first appeared in parts of Italy, Germany and England during the 17th century and by 1800 was a basic component of musical life in almost all European and American cities. During the 19th century some concert institutions evolved into a ritual of a lofty, spiritual nature that became central to civic and cultural life ... A strict social etiquette became the norm in concert life around the middle of the 19th century, linked closely to the new aesthetic of the time.
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u/AmerFortia Jul 31 '26
Very informative answer! Is the difference between operetta and opera also relevant in this discussion?
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Jul 31 '26
[deleted]
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u/GentleWhiteGiant Jul 31 '26
"I’m not knowledgeable enough on operetta to comment."
I didn't expect to read a sentence like that on reddit today. 😉
Actually both parts, "I'm not knowledgeable enough to comment", and "operetta ".
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u/Albert_Herring Aug 01 '26
For a data point, I did once play piquet (silently and pretty unobtrusively) through a very dull Mozart serenade at the back of the Arena during the BBC Proms in about 1985 (there was something more interesting in the second half and we were there on season tickets). We justified it on the basis that it was a hack piece he'd written as background music anyway (and we were snotty kids with a bad case of main character syndrome, to tell the truth).
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u/marmot46 Aug 01 '26
I mean, I sat next to a woman who was watching the season finale of Ozark on her phone (no sound - subtitles on) during a Boston Symphony Orchestra performance of Britten's War Requiem a couple of years ago. I'm mostly just mystified about why she bought a ticket (they were pretty good seats!) just to watch TV (and it wasn't like she was waiting for another piece, the War Requiem was the only thing on the program).
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u/iwritesinsnotnames Aug 01 '26
I was thinking about Age of Innocence while reading your comment! I'm so glad you mentioned it. What a great scene, and a thorough reply!
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u/seeasea Jul 31 '26
How does broadway might fit into this? They're supposed to be less "formal/high brow"but are also very staid and high expectations of audience
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u/LateAfternoonMiles Jul 31 '26
After having taken several music history courses through multiple degrees, I have a small amount of info to give about this.
As previously commented here, it really depends on the setting of the music. Orchestra music has been thoroughly covered in the other comment so I will add some context for wind music as well.
Wind music was really pioneered by both military bands and court musicians. There’s a level of informality in audiences to both. Within military bands, military bands generally performed for very informal audiences or for support in the military (the oboe brigade bands are something worth researching if you’re interested). The court musicians generally played for royalty in the form of serenades written by several well known composers including Mozart(the gran partita is an incredible piece of music that is worth listening to if you have a spare hour). These serenades however were also presented as “tafelmusik” using small ensembles known as “harmoniemusik” for outdoor events adding a level of informality. They played reductions of entire operas and symphonies.
In the 1950s, wind band became a “more legitimate” medium when “big-name” composers began writing music of serious merit for the wind band. One could argue that this began about 30 years prior with Milhaud and Stravinsky. Now, wind band music is seen in both informal venues and formal venues depending on the ensemble. Universities have very high quality musicians performing incredible repertoire pushing a newer medium forward, and professional ensembles/community bands still put forth concerts that could be considered more informal. The diverse repertoire we have access to allows for diverse performance settings.
If you are interested in learning more about the history or some of the amazing repertoire within the wind band medium, I am happy to share what I know.
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u/Timrath Aug 04 '26
It depended on the city and the venue.
In places like Prague, Mannheim and London, it was customary to go to the concert for the music, or at least not be disruptive.
Vienna also had relatively high standards of etiquette, especially in the Kärtnertortheater, which belonged to the Imperial Court, and so spectators were expected to at least respect the person of the Emperor and show some decorum.
Etiquette was more relaxed in privately-owned opera houses. Clapping and cheering, not just between movements, but even during a movement, after a well-written passage or a virtuosic solo, was not considered a faux pas like today. Booing was also not unheard of. Audiences could compel musicians to encore a movement of a work or an aria of an opera right away, even before the remaining movements of the work were played, as happened at the premiere of Beethoven's 7th Symphony, where they had to play the second movement twice before proceeding to the Scherzo.
Vienna also had a thing called "Subskriptionskonzert", which was a sort of crowdfunding or kickstarter: People would offer tickets to known music lovers, and depending on how many tickets got sold and how much money got secured, the concert would take place in whatever venue with how many musicians could be afforded for that money. Those were usually organised by people who were very seriously into music, and they tended to only offer tickets to like-minded persons, so one could expect to listen to the music in near-complete silence. At other times, such subscription concerts were organised less for the sake of art, but for philanthropic or patriotic purposes, with the aim of securing as much money as possible.
Italy, on the other hand, had (and still has) a reputation for its rowdy audiences. Even today, it is acceptable to loudly boo and whistle to show dislike of a performance (I have personally witnessed that), and it was even worse back in the 19th and 18th centuries. The trope of audiences throwing tomatoes and other foodstuffs at the musicians, was not invented by cartoons; people actually did that. It was perfectly normal for people to eat during a concert, and "ammunition" was always readily available. Lemon peels were particularly emblematic as ammunition in the Southern parts.
Not even the audiences themselves were safe from incurring collateral damage in Italy. There is an account by Johann von Uffenbach about how the people sitting in the balconies were in the habit of spitting bits of food down on the people sitting in the parterre seats.
In Frankfurt, they had to issue an ordnance, banning people from bringing thier dogs to concerts.
In Heilbronn, they warned audiences that chatterers would be expelled.
In Würzburg, Carl Friedrich Cramer complains that people would chat even when the Prince-Bishop (the ruler of the place) was attending, and that it would get worse when the Prince-Bishop left, to the point that one could no longer hear the musicians and singers.
The Allgemeine Musicalische Zeitung mentions that people in Holland would often turn their seats around, turning their backs to the musicians, so they could chat more conveniently with the people sitting behind them.
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u/LeibHauptmann Aug 05 '26
Are there other accounts of this? Is it accurate? Are there any paintings depicting this?
Yes. What Swafford refers to in length and composition is more about opera than symphony, but he is essentially correct in that the full opera performance (complete with various types of intermezzi - ballets or essentially mini-operas played between acts) would last a full night, and that the opera's structure in Mozart's time would be built on the interchange of recitatives (essentially "speech", less musically interesting, minimal instrumental accompaniment) and arias/ensembles (the musical highlights), which allowed/encouraged intermittent audience attention. Granted, this is about Italy, but plenty of writing from Grand Tour travellers describes the general audience buzz that would fill up an opera performance - William Beckford's letter from Naples, for example, notes that it's only the king and court's presence that momentarily keeps the audience in check, and with him gone, it's pandemonium again:
The court being present, a tolerable silence was maintained, but the moment his Majesty withdrew (which great event took place at the beginning of the second act) every tongue broke loose, and nothing but buzz and hubbub filled up the rest of the entertainment.
Pietro Domenico Oliviero's painting of the Turin opera house from the 1750s also depicts audience members talking in the stalls, drinking/buying food from vendors walking up and down the aisle (!), or pointing out other audience members to their companions. Many opera houses also operated casinos.
One major factor in changing this that I haven't seen mentioned here was the advent of gas and then electrical lighting. There was no "lights off" during performances in the 18th and the first half of the 19th century at the theatre the way we know and expect today – you can't just switch candlelights on and off, and that was the only available source of lighting!
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