Audience responses to a live orchestral concert

Abstract

A sample of concertgoers attending a concert of orchestral music was asked to give ratings of the performance during the interval. Analysis of the data suggested that listeners with higher levels of formal musical training gave lower ratings than those without such training, but that otherwise the pattern of ratings was essentially similar. Liking for the piece itself was correlated with enjoyment of the performance; however, no relationship was observed between prior familiarity with the piece and enjoyment of the performance. Affective response to the performance was shown to be a markedly better predictor of enjoyment than the perceived quality of the performance, and it was suggested that most listeners were, on the whole, able to separate their judgements of the quality of the performance from their affective responses to it. Non-musical variables (such as satisfaction with the concert hall itself) were shown to make a small but statistically significant contribution to listeners' overall enjoyment of the concert. The findings are discussed in the light of previous research, and suggestions made for future investigations of naturalistic, "real world" performance evaluation.