^ And other tapers, it would seem (re: The True Enemy of The Taper)
The poignancy of the pregnant silent pause is commonly expressed across many cultures as some variant of "an angel passes over".
Un ange passe in French. In German- Ein engel flog durchs zimmer (an angel flew across the room) – as collected by folklorist Reinhold Köhler in 1865. Jacob Grimm observed earlier, “If among a group of people there is suddenly a silence, it is said that an angel has passed through, or an angel is passing through, its sublime appearance silencing worldly noise.”
And this from F. Marion Crawford's A Tale of Modern India- "There are times when silence seems to be sacred, even unaccountably so. A feeling is in us that to speak would be almost a sacrilege, though we are unable to account in any way for the pause. At such moments every one seems instinctively to feel the same influence, and the first person who breaks the spell either experiences a sensation of awkwardness and says something very foolish, or, conscious of the odds against him, delivers himself of a sentiment of ponderous severity and sententiousness…"
I've known a close friend to whisper "Tedewapan" (< my 100% phonetic misspelling) silently to herself upon those moments, which I was told is form some Asian or Native American culture, meaning "spirit passes over" and expressing essentially the same.
By whatever name, the fragile lingering silence at the end of a performance is a magical thing, and almost a performance in itself - one that completely dissolves the 4th wall.