Should we clap? Wait. Yes. Bravo! Shhhhhhhhh! Oops.

By Kristen Peterson

Saturday, Dec. 11, 2010 | 2 a.m.

David Itkin and the Las Vegas Philharmonic were performing Tchaikovsky’s “Fourth Symphony” the other night — an entirely gripping performance — when a symphony of another kind broke out in the audience.

It came at the end of the third movement, and it was nothing less than a shushing smackdown.

Audience members began clapping during the pause before the fourth movement, prompting a chorus of multivoiced shhhhhhhhhing, mixing with the applause and then drowning it out.

Had those who don’t clap between movements had enough with those who do?

Common theater etiquette dictates clapping should be reserved for the end of the performance, not during pauses.

But Itkin says there is no right or wrong.

Not clapping, he says, is a late 19th century, early 20th century phenomenon. Before that, not only did audience members clap between movements, but if the applause was loud enough, it would prompt the musicians to perform the piece again.

“That’s what ‘encore’ meant,” Itkin says. “They’re saying, ‘I loved the piece so much I want you to do it again.’ I’m finding that general sensibility to be changing back.”

But not everyone is happy with the clapping, Itkin says: “I’ve even had people call and e-mail, asking, ‘Would you please address this from stage?’ But I’m not going to do something that people perceive as disciplining the audience. It doesn’t disturb the performance, and our main job is not to teach manners. Our main job is to get people excited about music.”

For this performance, Itkin would have preferred no applause at the end of the third movement, thinking the moment called for silence. He had hoped to telegraph that message to the audience by keeping his arms in the air, signaling that he wasn’t done.

Concertgoers, then, should do what the musicians do: Take their cue from the conductor.