Sunday afternoon between Tremper’s graduation ceremony (the choir sang one of my compositions) and a Side by Side by Sondheim rehearsal at my house I squeezed in a quick trip to the north side of Racine to hear as much as I could of Kristen Barnes’ senior voice recital. I’m not sure just why Kristen opted to do her senior recital after the school year was over- and not on campus but rather at St. Andrews Lutheran Church. . . but it worked out nicely. This church has been the site of some Carthage church music internships over the last couple of years and Kristen has been there for (I believe) the last two years- and they love her there! And the sanctuary is an absolutely beautiful space for making music. . . probably my second favorite Lutheran sanctuary in the city. (You can guess what my favorite is.) It’s not all that large but it has a wonderful spaciousness to it, yet also warm and cozy – and the acoustics are fantastic, plus there’s a very fine concert grand piano. So it proved to be a fine location for her recital, and I was happy to see that quite a number of her fellow students, including Jon Habermaas, Dan Ermel, Vanessa Schroeder, Caitlin Smulski, Jennifer Cobb, Dawn Gallt and Jennifer Ledanski (the last three recent alums) were there, along with plenty of her fans from the church. And they certainly heard some wonderful singing from Kristen.
The recital provided me with an opportunity to revisit one of my pet peeves. . . unwanted applause between songs. In case you haven’t been to too many formal recitals yourself, the tradition is that applause is reserved for before and after each set of songs. For instance, a recital set might consist of three songs by Franz Schubert – and the audience would be invited to clap at the beginning and at the end of the set, but would be discouraged from clapping between each and every song. The reasoning there is that in many cases the songs are meant to be sung as and heard as a cohesive set, with each song leading to the next either musically or thematically, or both, without what would amount to the interruption and intrusion of applause. And when you’re used to that, it is incredibly irritating for a curmudgeon like me when that tradition is ignored.
(When my students give recitals, I always insist that they speak to their visiting relatives and explain to them this tradition of holding applause until a set is over… because so often it is enthusiastic Aunt Bertha in the front row who can’t wait to applaud after each and every song sung by their brilliantly gifted niece or nephew.)
An amusing sidebar: Trevor once told me that he was especially proud of the fact that in the three voice recitals he gave at Carthage, with so many of his football teammates and coaches in attendance, not once was there “errant applause.” One way or another . . . but I presume because of prep from Trevor. . . the guys were quietly attentive and reserved their applause for the proper time.
Anyway, I have always really gritted my teeth about this on those occasions when someone in a given audience is oblivious to this – until Kristen’s recital Sunday. As this well meaning audience clapped enthusiastically after every single song, somehow I wasn’t seeing them as ignorant and insensitive. What I heard in the sound of that relentless applause was LOVE. These folks from St. Andrews love Kristen and were so happy to be there experiencing what I assume was for many of them their very first formal recital. And I found any hint of irritation washed away by that sense of love in the room. And also the applause seemed to be so genuinely enthusiastic, unlike the after-every-song applause on other occasions which seems so perfunctory- “oops, she’s done singing. It must be time to applaud again.” After awhile, such applause loses all meaning. But not Sunday- when the applause just seemed to well up out of the audience not by rote but because they you could just sense how much they were enjoying each and every song.
Which is not to say that I won’t be irritated by the Aunt Berthas of the world who clap when they’re not supposed to- but this was somehow was different . . . and maybe in finding a way to accept this, I will be a bit less irritated by future instances of applause where it does not belong. After all, there are worse things in the world and I should probably be reserving my righteous indignation for the things which really matter.
pictured: Kristen Barnes in the midst of the encore of her senior voice recital at St. Andrews Lutheran Church.