Are you allowed to clap between movements at the @BBCProms? Of course it depends on the context, but spoiler alert - YES, says Radio 3's Tom Service. 🎧 For more tips, tales and trivia, download Tom's essential guide to the Proms on BBC Sounds.

@bbcproms @BBCSounds No. Absolutely not (unless the performers expressly invite it). It breaks the mood, destroys the tension. What next? Clapping the flute solo? Singing along to the “tunes” that you recognise? Just no.

@bbcproms @BBCSounds What really irritates me is when someone shouts bravo the moment the last note has sounded out. After a particularly profound piece of music, that moment of silence after can be very affecting. Wait till the conductor turns round to face the audience.

@bbcproms @BBCSounds Please don't clap between movements. The advice I always follow, and offer to people new to classical music, is to wait until someone else starts clapping, and then join in with enthusiasm and gusto!

@bbcproms @BBCSounds NOT like Elton 'finishing' his Glastonbury gig, when of course everyone applauds. As they would or should at the finish of a classical piece. But not necessarily halfway through, when mood and atmosphere can be interrupted or broken by the intervention of the audience. I think.

@bbcproms @BBCSounds Always amazes me. Go to a pop concert and everyone claps when a song starts, when it finishes, when someone holds a note, if someone comes on stage or goes off stage.i appreciate it's not the same and you don't want to break a mood, but if we want to encourage new audiences...

@bbcproms @BBCSounds I don't like clapping between movements, to me it's a no no.

@bbcproms @BBCSounds I tend to be a non-clapper-till-the-end but after listening to Ravel's Piano Concerto Movt 1 by Dame Imogen Cooper with Sir Mark Elder and the Halle in 2021 at @RoyalNottingham, the whole audience (including me) erupted in applause spontaneously. It was breath-taking 😍

@bbcproms @BBCSounds I don’t think I’ve ever been to a performance of Tchaikovsky 6 where there hasn’t been applause after the 3rd mvt.

@bbcproms @BBCSounds No you shouldn't. It destroys the atmosphere for everyone. It's like interrupting an athlete "in the zone". Wait until performers/conductor relax at the end.

@bbcproms @BBCSounds Doesn't worry me- it always used to happen. Surely audience appreciation is no bad thing. If performers object, they should say so before the performance begins, then everyone knows where they stand.