Sir – I too was in the Upper Gallery at the marvellous Barenboim concert on May morning. Unlike your correspondent (Letters, May 6) I feel that standing ovations — an import from our American cousins —are more about the self-aggrandisement of members of the audience.

They signal ‘we are musical, we are knowledgeable to clap is not enough we need to stand and clap’.

I will continue to clap loud and long for a good performance to congratulate and thank the performers (and of course the composer) for giving such pleasure, from my seat.

I find equally annoying the increasing habit — another import — of clapping in the middle of operas after a particular aria. This interrupts the flow of the performance.

Roger Blackburn, Oxford