Have you ever seen this before ?

[kghayesh]

I went to a piano recital a couple of days ago. Some strange situation happend after the pianist finished the programme. I have never seen this before.

The pianist finishes the programme with Debussy's suite pour le piano. The applause starts and the pianist stands for about 10 seconds to bow for the audience. What is usually done is that the pianist moves into backstage and then while people are still applauding, he/she gets out again, bows then move in again. The next time to get out an encore may be played.

What happened then was that only after about 10-15 sec. of applaud, i find her sitting to the piano again and playing her first encore !! She finishes and gets some warm applaud then again sits on the piano and plays the second encore..

The same process was repeated again (without going backstage anytime) so she played 3 or 4 encores in the same way.

So, is this normal or what coz i've never seen this before!!!

[thalbergmad]

Not normal, but perhaps the bar was about to open.

[Kassaa]

Not normal, but perhaps the bar was about to open.

Heh.

Also strange, when I went to a recital of Anna Kravtchenko she walked up the stairs and down after each piece she played :S .

[crazy for ivan moravec]

maybe the backstage door was locked. hehehe.

yes it's not normal. if you felt like the audience was quite warm with their applause, one doesn't need to go backstage before playing the encores. she was probably more than willing to please her audience. but if u feel that the audience was just clapping out of curtesy or so, then she should have packed and left... hehe, kidding.

[bennom]

In my opinion, pianists are too eager to do encores. If you are called in twice, it's usually by courtesy of the audience. If they make you come in four times, and they're shouting "bravo"... well, then you give it to them. Otherwise, leave the hall and give yourself a well-deserved beer instead.

P.S I was in Buenos Aires in 2000, and heard Barenboim's return concert at the Colon Theatre. He played about 25 encores, many of them not good. He would have continued all night, if not the technical staff had forced him to stop. Bizarre!!! Worst of all; the main programme was sooo boring. But the audience just needed to call him in once, to get the circus started. It was a memorable evening!!!

[quantum]

Maybe it was due to stage design.  I've seen some concerts where the stage was so small and the soloist and to literally tred over the orchestra in order to find the one and only stange entrance. 

[kghayesh]

Maybe it was due to stage design.

No, the stage was so big you can place 10 grand pianos in the empty space !!

[lostinidlewonder]

That is amusing. But i have had worse that that happen to me personally. I finished a large concert and bowed and walked off, waiting to come back on because they where still clapping, then the stupid stage hand closed the curtains and cued the lights! I was like..... WHAT!