There are at least three urgent topics from this week’s news that have to be addressed, but…you know what, I just don’t have the strength. I take my hat off to Daniel Gordis, who, week in, week out, draws his followers’ attention to the questions that matter, both the obvious and the less obvious. If you want to know what those questions are this week, and, indeed, every week, then I recommend you subscribe to his podcast, Israel from the Inside.

Which leaves me free to focus on the questions that really don’t matter. For example, what constitutes acceptable audience behaviour at a classical music concert: more specifically, at the Proms, London’s annual, eight-week long, summer festival of daily concerts of classical music? Each season consists of concerts in the Royal Albert Hall, chamber music concerts at a couple of London venues, and many ancillary events. The season is a significant event in British culture and in classical music, and has been fairly described as “the world’s largest and most democratic musical festival.”

As the classical music world prepares for the 2026 season, debate has arisen over appropriate audience behaviour during concerts. The Proms have had some success in attracting a new, younger audience to classical music, but this has apparently created some conflict. Last week a debate started in the media over mobile phone usage at classical music recitals, which, according to the boss of the BBC Proms, threatens to alienate new fans. Sam Jackson has encouraged seasoned classical music lovers to embrace a new audience of listeners who may film with their smartphones, amid debate that the use of mobiles during these live fixtures can cheapen the moment and prove a distraction.

“Anything which makes them feel the Proms is welcoming to them is a good thing,” Jackson said when asked by The Times about excessive phone use. “What I am not saying is that I want everyone to have their phones out. It is absolutely not that. But there is a real risk in the classical music world that we hold back from welcoming new people.”

Let me make my position clear. I am, by temperament, firmly in the camp of those who clutch their metaphorical pearls at the prospect of audience members filming a concert, or, the other contentious issue, applauding between movements of a single piece of music. And yet, and yet, at the same time I recognise that my personal preference is just that, and not the only conceivable approach to listening to music.

Perhaps a little historical perspective, and a dash of etymology, are appropriate here, as they so often are.

Late eighteenth-century composers such as Mozart expected that people would talk, particularly when audience members took dinner (which many had served during the performance), and took delight in audiences clapping at once in response to a nice musical effect. Individual movements were encored in response to audience applause. Mozart would almost certainly have expected food, drink, gossip, and a rowdy 18th-century crowd.

The nineteenth century brought a shift in venue from aristocratic gatherings to public concerts along with works featuring an unprecedentedly wide dynamic range. Mahler clamped down on claques (groups of people hired to applaud a particular performer), and specified in the score of his Kindertotenlieder that its movements should not be punctuated by applause.

With the arrival of recording technology in the twentieth century, applause between the movements of a symphony or suite came to be regarded as a distraction from the momentum and unity of a work. With the background silence of 20th-century recording studios, audience noise has come to be viewed as intrusive to performers and patrons alike.

That this is a convention and not the only logical approach to listening to music can be clearly seen if we consider what constitutes appropriate audience behaviour when listening to jazz. It is regarded as good etiquette to applaud after each solo within a single piece or song, in acknowledgement of the soloist, and also, particularly when the instrumentalists play an elaborate intro to a well-known standard, the moment the audience recognises the tune they may well applaud.

To give one last example: applauding after an operatic aria is a time-honoured tradition.  In truth, it makes no more or less sense than applauding after a single movement of a multi-movement symphony or concerto, particularly in a dramatic opera. Applauding after an aria is the musical equivalent of applauding after a fine rendition of a Shakespearean speech – Hamlet’s ‘To be or not to be’ soliloquy, or Henry V’s ‘One more unto the breach, dear friends’ address to his troops. In the one context, it is regarded as acceptable; in the other, it is not.

To be honest, in both cases it seems to me to destroy the dramatic flow of the piece, and I would much prefer it if it never happened. Mind you, it is not as bad as the pernicious habit of applauding a star performer in a play when they first come on stage. I suspect that that is a habit driven by West End or Broadway theatregoers desperately wanting to convince themselves of the uncontainable excitement of the experience for which they have paid a mouth-watering sum of money.

In the context of the BBC Proms, which is where we started, promming refers to the use of the standing areas inside the Royal Albert Hall (the Arena and Gallery) for which ticket prices are much lower than for the seating. Prom concert-goers, particularly those who stand, are sometimes referred to as “Prommers” or “Promenaders”.

The businessman and musical impresario who launched the Proms, Robert Newman, wished to generate a wider audience for concert hall music by offering low ticket prices and an informal atmosphere, where eating, drinking and smoking were permitted to the Promenaders. He stated his aim to the founding conductor, Henry Wood, in 1894 as follows:

I am going to run nightly concerts and train the public by easy stages. Popular at first, gradually raising the standard until I have created a public for classical and modern music.

In light of all this, Sam Jackson’s call for tolerance to be shown toward an inexperienced audience seems very much in the Proms tradition.

I should perhaps also point out that there is a long Proms tradition of Promenaders following a very specific etiquette at the final Prom concert of the season. The Last Night of the Proms is, shall we say, an irreverent occasion, as you can see here and here. (In the second clip, you may not immediately realise that the audience are humming along with the oboe soloist, but you can’t possibly miss them whistling along with the flute section and singing along with the brass.) Placed alongside the Last Night shenanigans, a little cellphone filming seems fairly tame.

So, despite my personal preference for near-sterile concert-hall conditions, I suppose I have to admit that audiences need to show a certain amount of tolerance. There is no substitute for being in the presence of a great live performance, and if the electricity that generates also creates a little static from time to time, that is, in honesty, a small price to pay.

Popcorn in the cinema, on the other hand….