When should the leader come onto the stage?

[Lion-of-Vienna]

Why should the leader be a violinist? It seems like a ring-fenced post to me. What's wrong with the first clarinet or the bass trombonist? After all the captain of a football team doesn't have to play in a particular position.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I've often thought the same. I suppose it dates from the time when there was no conductor.
Who would lead the orchestra in the original version of Faure's Requiem?

[David Underdown]

I've always understood that the leader comes on last, and is applauded, as representative of the whole orchestra, the applause isn't for them personally ( and it means that the audience doesn't have to applaud the whole time the orchestra is coming on)

[BudgieJane]

I was thinking exactly the same thing. (My school was part of an arrangement for pupils to get reduced priced tickets for the Gods and I was a regular at the Free Trade Hall.)

I was a student in Manchester in the late 1960s and we got half-price tickets through the Student Union, so for a couple of years I was a regular at the Free Trade Hall also.

[Lion-of-Vienna]

Who would lead the orchestra in the original version of Faure's Requiem?

.............or Brahms's Second Serenade Op.16? In Liszt's First Piano Concerto I think the triangle player ought to be the leader!

[bluestateprommer]

.............or Brahms's Second Serenade Op.16?

Easy; the principal viola of the ensemble. I've seen Brahms' op. 16 once live where that was exactly how the "hierarchy" went, with the principal viola where the concertmaster would normally have been.

[Lee McLernon]

I've always understood that the leader comes on last, and is applauded, as representative of the whole orchestra, the applause isn't for them personally ( and it means that the audience doesn't have to applaud the whole time the orchestra is coming on)

My thoughts exactly.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I've always understood that the leader comes on last, and is applauded, as representative of the whole orchestra, the applause isn't for them personally ( and it means that the audience doesn't have to applaud the whole time the orchestra is coming on)

Is that really worth being paid an arm and a leg more than the other players?

[Mr Pee]

In fact some people used to arrive early as they regarded the tuning-up as the best part of the concert.

Contemporary music fans??

[Chris Newman]

I do not know if the principal violinist is the best person to be leader of an orchestra but, by gum, they make all the difference to the sound of an orchestra. Having somebody of the dynamism of Rodney Friend, Hugh Bean or Andrew Haveron sitting next to the conductor lifts an orchestra into world class. The same is true of the great leaders of baroque ensembles.