A concert encore can be planned, rehearsed, and coordinated in advance while still giving the audience a meaningful part in the ending. Applause may ask performers to return without choosing what they will play. The useful distinction is between influencing the closing exchange and controlling the setlist: those are different kinds of participation.
The return is part of the performance
In her study of the encore ritual, Emma Webster describes rehearsed returns and coordination involving venues or promoters. Her research draws on observation and interviews in Glasgow, Sheffield, and Bristol, primarily addressing UK live music events. It offers evidence that some encores are expected and organized, not grounds for declaring every contemporary concert ending predetermined.
That distinction changes the question a listener might ask. Instead of trying to catch a performer pretending to leave, consider what the temporary departure makes possible. An ending that briefly becomes uncertain creates room for a response. The crowd has something recognizable to do, and the performer has something recognizable to answer.
This is an interpretation of the ritual’s appeal, rather than evidence that any particular artist needs persuading backstage. Preparation and responsiveness can occupy the same moment. Knowing how an exchange works does not settle how much feeling people bring to it.
When applause meets a refusal
A review preserved by the Metropolitan Opera Archives provides a useful test of audience power. At the December 4, 1921, concert, listeners demanded another encore from Adamo Didur after he had already supplied one. He declined. According to the review, the noise stopped when conductor Giuseppe Bamboschek began another piece.
The episode separates a request from a command. Listeners could press for more, and their response became part of the event’s documented story. They could not compel the singer to continue. Nor does the account establish what every person in the room wanted: a noisy demand is evidence of participation, not a unanimous vote.
For today’s listener, the example offers a useful way to understand the apparent negotiation. A request can be real even when it fails. Equally, a successful return does not reveal whether the performer changed plans. The visible result alone cannot tell us how much was decided beforehand.
How an extra becomes institutional memory
The Vienna Philharmonic supplies a different perspective. Its 2026 New Year’s Concert page states that the Radetzky March first appeared at its New Year’s Concert on January 1, 1946, as the first encore, before the Blue Danube Waltz. That specific historical placement shows how something presented as an addition can become part of an institution’s account of itself.
There is a cultural tension here: the word “extra” suggests something outside the main event, yet an extra can acquire lasting significance. The boundary between the concert and its afterword is therefore worth noticing. What follows an apparent ending may help define how that event is remembered.
The historical detail does not establish a particular 2026 encore program. Its value is narrower and more interesting: it anchors an encore in a dated performance, allowing us to see the closing margin of a concert as a place where institutional history can develop.
What the audience is still asking for
Webster identifies several functions for the ritual, including marking the ending, thanking listeners, and giving audiences a sense of influence. Those functions help explain why exposing advance preparation need not drain the exchange of meaning.
The strongest reading is modest: applause can express a desire to continue the encounter. Performers can acknowledge that desire through a return whose musical contents were already chosen. Listeners need not mistake acknowledgment for authorship to find it satisfying.
A rehearsed encore invites scrutiny when it seems to promise unlimited audience control. But a shared ending asks less than that. The applause says the room wants more; the response gives that wish a form. Its meaning can reside in the exchange, even when the next song was never up for a vote.
Sources
- Emma Webster, “One more tune!” The encore ritual in live music events — Popular Music and Society; author manuscript hosted by Live Music Exchange. Checked October 16, 2026.
- Third Grand Sunday Night Concert — Metropolitan Opera Archives; includes a Musical America review. Checked October 16, 2026.
- New Year’s Concert 2026 with Yannick Nézet-Séguin — Vienna Philharmonic. Checked October 16, 2026.
