{"id":52166,"date":"2025-01-28T11:56:57","date_gmt":"2025-01-28T10:56:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1b3abd4f-f1c4-4e90-9b40-20d4aee54bb1"},"modified":"2025-01-28T13:09:18","modified_gmt":"2025-01-28T12:09:18","slug":"but-what-shall-i-play-the-rise-and-fall-of-the-encore","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/rss_feed\/but-what-shall-i-play-the-rise-and-fall-of-the-encore\/","title":{"rendered":"‘But what shall I play?’: the rise and fall of the encore"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By <\/p>

Published: Tuesday, 28 January 2025 at 10:56 AM<\/p>

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Sometimes an encore outshines the concert preceding it. Such was the case at a recital in October 2021 in Parma, Italy, when the soprano<\/a><\/strong> Lisette Oropesa decided to add a fourth, unrehearsed encore to her programme. A problem loomed: the selection, \u2018Sempre Libera\u2019 from Giuseppe Verdi<\/strong>\u2019<\/a>s La traviata<\/em>, requires a tenor, which had not been arranged.<\/p>

Sensing the impending void, Liu Jianwei, a music student from a nearby conservatory, rose from his seat in the auditorium and belted out the offstage tenor part, to the apparent delight of Oropesa and the audience. Audience video captured the moment and clips soon ricocheted across social media, YouTube and TikTok. Liu later met Oropesa backstage and offered what turned out to be an unnecessary apology.<\/p>

<\/div> <\/figure> <p>The French word \u2018encore\u2019 (literally, \u2018again\u2019) first appeared in English in the early 18th century, used by audiences of Italian opera in London. It was simply the repetition of a selection (an <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/musical-terms\/what-aria\">aria<\/a><\/strong>, perhaps, or an <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/musical-terms\/what-overture\">overture<\/a><\/strong>) that had garnered enough applause to be performed again. But over time, some encores have risen to sensational status on their own.<\/p> <p>Consider one that pianist Rudolf Serkin gave in Berlin in 1921. The formal programme had ended with a crowd-pleasing rendition of <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/composers\/johann-sebastian-bach\">Bach<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s Fifth <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/recordings\/best-recordings-js-bachs-brandenburg-concertos\">Brandenburg Concerto<\/a><\/strong>, complete with a blazing <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/musical-terms\/what-is-a-cadenza\">cadenza<\/a><\/strong>. Backstage, violinist Adolf Busch urged Serkin to perform an encore.<\/p> <p>\u2018What shall I play?\u2019 the 18-year-old Serkin asked. \u2018The <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/articles\/the-best-recordings-of-js-bachs-goldberg-variations\">Goldberg Variations<\/a><\/strong>,\u2019 Busch replied, jokingly. The pianist took him at his word and delivered Bach\u2019s entire work. Serkin later recalled that the only remaining audience members were Busch and his wife, the pianist Artur Schnabel and the musicologist Alfred Einstein.<\/p> <h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">When two great sopranos fought over an encore<\/h2> <p>A very different element of surprise coloured the encores given in 1951 by Renata Tebaldi during a joint recital with <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/artists\/maria-callas\">Maria Callas<\/a><\/strong> in Rio de Janeiro. The sopranos had agreed that neither would upstage the other by performing encores, but Tebaldi gave not one but two. As the story goes, Callas later berated Tebaldi publicly at a dinner party, referencing a recent flop in Italy and setting off a longstanding rivalry.\u00a0<\/p> <ul class=\"wp-block-list\"> <li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/artists\/20-greatest-sopranos-all-time\">Greatest sopranos of all time: 20 immortal divas, from Leontyne Price to Maria Callas<\/a><\/strong><\/li> <\/ul> <p>Eighteenth- and early-19th-century encores grew out of a more freewheeling era for concert etiquette. When audiences called for one at the premiere of <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/composers\/ludwig-van-beethoven\">Beethoven<\/a>\u2019<\/strong>s <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/works\/guide-beethovens-symphony-no-7\">Seventh Symphony<\/a><\/strong>, the <em>Allegretto<\/em> alone received a second hearing.<\/p> <figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"> <div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\"> <iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Beethoven - Symphony No.7 in A major op.92 - II, Allegretto\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/vCHREyE5GzQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\"\/> <\/div> <\/figure> <p>But mid-show encores posed a larger test for opera houses. As Theodore Fenner details in <em>Opera in London<\/em>, impresarios and critics found them vulgar and intrusive but also a statistical gauge of public taste. As a <em>Times<\/em> reviewer noted in 1791, \u2018John Bull will perhaps think it extraordinary that during the evening there did not occur one encore\u2019.<\/p> <h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">One memorable encore: a three-hour opera<\/h2> <p>Encore practice was more tightly controlled in royal theatres, where only a monarch or his deputy could demand one. When Cimarosa\u2019s comedy <em>Il matrimonio segreto<\/em> was staged in Vienna before the Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II, the monarch was so pleased that he ordered dinner for the cast and then called for a repeat of the nearly three-hour opera \u2013 possibly the longest encore in history.<\/p> <p>In early-19th-century Paris, professional claques known as \u2018bisseurs\u2019 were hired to hype singers by calling out for encores. Almost everyone understood their role, and prima donnas who denied audiences encores did so at their peril.<\/p> <p>When German soprano Gertrud Elisabeth Mara refused to sing one in a 1785 performance at King\u2019s Theatre, the audience angrily hissed. A <em>Times<\/em> reviewer took her side, arguing that \u2018the airs \u2026 should not be bravo\u2019d till the <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/musical-terms\/symphony\">symphony<\/a><\/strong> be closed\u2019. But when Mara refused again in 1793, <em>The<\/em> <em>Times<\/em> this time decided \u2018she was very properly hissed for refusing\u2019.<\/p> <h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">When conductors put their foot down<\/h2> <p>More often, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/artists\/greatest-opera-divas\">divas<\/a><\/strong> embraced show-stopping moments. During a Metropolitan Opera touring production of <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/composers\/charles-gounod\">Gounod<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s <em>Rom\u00e9o et Juliette<\/em> in Boston in 1895, an upright piano was wheeled onto the stage so that soprano Nellie Melba could sing her encore.<\/p> <ul class=\"wp-block-list\"> <li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/artists\/1920s-divas\">Divas behaving badly: how the Roaring Twenties’s opera stars kept themselves in the limelight<\/a><\/strong><\/li> <\/ul> <p>When soprano Marcella Sembrich was called back for multiple encores during <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/composers\/gaetano-donizetti\">Donizetti<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s <em>Lucia di Lammermoor<\/em> in Washington, DC, \u2018even the musicians dropped their instruments, stood up in their seats, and cried \u201cBravo!\u201d\u2019 reported <em>The<\/em> <em>Washington Evening Star<\/em>. By the 1910s, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/articles\/what-does-a-conductor-do\">conductors<\/a><\/strong> including Arturo Toscanini had seen enough, and refused to grant singers their starry moment, thus marking a decline in the practice.<\/p> <ul class=\"wp-block-list\"> <li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/articles\/female-conductors\">‘I was told I should be in the kitchen, making children’. Why are there still so few female conductors?<\/a><\/strong><\/li> <li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/articles\/first-conductor\">A brief history of conducting<\/a><\/strong><\/li> <\/ul> <p>The Met drew a line with a chaotic 1924 production of Flotow\u2019s <em>Martha<\/em>. As the audience called on tenor Beniamino Gigli to repeat the aria \u2018M\u2019appari\u2019, conductor Gennaro Papi pressed ahead with the next scene even as Gigli was still returning for more bows. The words \u2018positively no encores allowed\u2019 began appearing in capital letters in programmes.\u00a0<\/p> <figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"> <div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\"> <iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Pavarotti- Flotow- M'Appari- Martha\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/yfQWjLVB4V8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\"\/> <\/div> <\/figure> <h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">‘Has the Met let a monster out of the bottle?’<\/h2> <p>Both Milan\u2019s <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/articles\/when-was-milans-la-scala-built\">La Scala<\/a><\/strong> and the Met finally relaxed their encore policies in 2007 and \u201908, respectively, when tenor Juan-Diego Fl\u00f3rez was invited to repeat the high C-laden tenor aria from Donizetti\u2019s\u00a0<em>La fille du r\u00e9giment<\/em> (an earlier thaw at the Met came in 1994, when <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/artists\/pavarotti\">Luciano Pavarotti<\/a><\/strong> repeated an aria in <em><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/works\/puccinis-tosca-guide\">Tosca<\/a><\/strong><\/em>). These moments drew both excitement and some renewed tutting.<\/p> <ul class=\"wp-block-list\"> <li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/artists\/how-puccinis-madam-butterfly-catapulted-pavarotti-to-stardom\">How Puccini’s <em>Madam Butterfly<\/em> catapulted Pavarotti to stardom<\/a><\/strong><\/li> <\/ul> <p>\u2018In lifting official prohibitions and traditional restraints, hasn\u2019t the Met let a monster out of the bottle?\u2019 asked <em>Newsday<\/em> theatre critic Linda Winer. \u2018If tonight\u2019s audience gets an encore, won\u2019t tomorrow\u2019s feel cheated if they just get a fine performance? Without the encores does it mean that the other guy saw a better show?\u2019<\/p> <p>Encores are usually plotted carefully and repeated over the course of a performance run or tour. In an era of strict contracts, union rules and licensing restrictions, venues are actively involved in encore preparation to ensure a smooth and timely finish.<\/p> <p>Yet among pianists, encore policies vary. Artur Schnabel detested them, while Evgeny Kissin dispensed 12 encores at a 2007 Carnegie Hall recital. <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/composers\/sergey-rachmaninov\">Sergei Rachmaninov<\/a><\/strong> would always signal that he was done for the night by playing his Prelude in C\u00a0sharp minor. \u2018A new composition by myself,\u2019 he said in a sarcastically theatrical voice before one Philadelphia performance, suggesting that had grown weary of the ritual.<\/p> <figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"> <div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\"> <iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Rachmaninoff plays Prelude in C Sharp Minor\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ZcG-DnGdWRw?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\"\/> <\/div> <\/figure> <h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Fanatics followed him from place to place<\/h2> <p>At Carnegie Hall in 1918, Rachmaninov disappointed the \u2018flappers\u2019 in the balconies by denying them the Prelude. \u2018All of flapperdom sorrowed last night,\u2019 snorted <em>The<\/em> <em>New York Times<\/em>\u2019s James Gibbons Huneker, \u2018for there are amiable fanatics who follow this pianist from place to place hoping to hear him in this particular prelude; like the Englishman who attended every performance of the lady lion tamer hoping to see her swallowed by one of her pets.\u2019<\/p> <p>Some of history\u2019s most attention-getting encores have doubled as social or political statements. <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/artists\/daniel-barenboim\">Daniel Barenboim<\/a><\/strong> and the Berlin Staatskapelle used the humble encore in 2001 as a way to introduce the Prelude to <em><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/works\/guide-wagners-tristan-und-isolde\">Tristan und Isolde<\/a><\/strong><\/em> to Israel, breaking with the country\u2019s unofficial <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/composers\/richard-wagner\">Wagner<\/a><\/strong> ban and setting off a tempest, with some audience members shouting epithets and walking out.<\/p> <figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"> <div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\"> <iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Staatskapelle Berlin \/ Daniel Barenboim Jerusalem 2001 Tristan und Isolde\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ZOrJlm7s3vc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\"\/> <\/div> <\/figure> <p>Other performers have displayed a more relaxed side through their encores. Pianist <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/artists\/gabriela-montero\">Gabriela Montero<\/a><\/strong>, known for her improvisation skills, has improvised encores based on themes requested (or sung) by audience members. Violinist <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/artists\/pekka-kuusisto-0\">Pekka Kuusisto<\/a><\/strong> has\u00a0played and sang jaunty Finnish folk songs, even leading an audience sing-along at the BBC Proms in 2016. And fellow fiddler Hilary Hahn, tired of trotting out familiar pieces, commissioned short encores for violin and piano from 26 composers, then held\u00a0an online competition\u00a0to choose a 27th.<\/p> <p>Perhaps as more artists rethink performance conventions in this unsettled era, the spontaneity of a well executed encore can make its way into the formal part of programmes. Then again, there\u2019s the old show business maxim: always leave audiences wanting more.\u00a0<\/p> <h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Encores: a musician’s view<\/h2> <p><strong>Violinist Henning Kraggerud: <\/strong>Once during a tour I realised that I had forgotten to prepare an encore, so I decided instead to trust in my ability to improvise straight from the heart. It worked out so well that I often now improvise as an introduction to the main pieces in my concert programmes. I take the harmonic progression from the central work, or any other appropriate elements, and improvise over them. In this way I\u2019m not just performing the work of the composer \u2013 I\u2019m a co-creator.<\/p> <p>Our reverence for classical repertoire can sometimes feel a bit like a religion. Because encores form a less regulated part of the concert, they present the opportunity for greater creativity.<\/p> <figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"> <div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\"> <iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Henning Kraggerud plays Bruch's First Violin Concerto (Excerpt) - BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ntEbEnTT6No?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\"\/> <\/div> <\/figure> <p><strong>Cellist Johannes Moser:<\/strong> These days I tend to play an encore with the whole <strong>cello<\/strong> section after a <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/musical-terms\/what-concerto\">concerto<\/a><\/strong>, such as Pablo Casals\u2019s <em>Song of the Birds <\/em>or the second movement of Grieg\u2019s<em> Holberg Suite <\/em>arranged for six cellos. Often a concerto is more like a symphony with a solo part, so rather than pushing the rest of the <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/articles\/what-instruments-make-up-an-orchestra\">orchestra<\/a><\/strong> aside in the encore, it\u2019s nice to be more\u00a0inclusive.\u00a0<\/p> <p>Encore choices may have changed in recent years as the role of the soloist is changing. There\u2019s no longer that singular, star cult. Instead, the soloist is a kind of ambassador between the orchestra and the public. The encore becomes an opportunity to make a statement about how you view your role in that context.\u00a0<\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n<hr class=\"no-tts wp-block-separator\"\/>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Published: Tuesday, 28 January 2025 at 10:56 AM Sometimes an encore outshines the concert preceding it. Such was the case at a recital in October 2021 in Parma, Italy, when the soprano Lisette Oropesa decided to add a fourth, unrehearsed encore to her programme. A problem loomed: the selection, \u2018Sempre Libera\u2019 from Giuseppe Verdi\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":52167,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"8"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2025\/01\/but-what-shall-i-play-the-rise-and-fall-of-the-encore.jpg",1200,800,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2025\/01\/but-what-shall-i-play-the-rise-and-fall-of-the-encore-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2025\/01\/but-what-shall-i-play-the-rise-and-fall-of-the-encore-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2025\/01\/but-what-shall-i-play-the-rise-and-fall-of-the-encore-768x512.jpg",768,512,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2025\/01\/but-what-shall-i-play-the-rise-and-fall-of-the-encore-1024x683.jpg",800,534,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2025\/01\/but-what-shall-i-play-the-rise-and-fall-of-the-encore.jpg",1200,800,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2025\/01\/but-what-shall-i-play-the-rise-and-fall-of-the-encore.jpg",1200,800,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Published: Tuesday, 28 January 2025 at 10:56 AM Sometimes an encore outshines the concert preceding it. Such was the case at a recital in October 2021 in Parma, Italy, when the soprano Lisette Oropesa decided to add a fourth, unrehearsed encore to her programme. A problem loomed: the selection, \u2018Sempre Libera\u2019 from Giuseppe Verdi\u2019s…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/52166"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}