Abstract
Since the establishment of a classical music canon in the 19th century, classical music culture has historically been focused on a stable set of masterpieces by genius composers predominantly from the classical and romantic periods. A small number of composers continue to dominate programming to this day. Many classical music organisations are keen to programme music beyond this narrow repertoire and to showcase new or unfamiliar works. The need to sell tickets, however, is often an obstacle, with organisations far more confident in the ability of big hits to attract large crowds. This article explores the experiences and opinions of classical music concertgoers in relation to familiar and unfamiliar music, providing a number of reasons as to why audiences may choose to hear well-known pieces rather than new works. This paper reports on one strand of a qualitative study with 42 individuals who booked tickets for one of two concert series consisting of core and populist repertoire, respectively. Semi-structured interviews were carried out to explore the reasons for their choices and their experiences of attending live concerts. These interviews showed that most participants did indeed have a clear preference for hearing music that was familiar to them, and only frequent attenders relished the challenge of unknown music. Participants felt that listening to familiar music was usually a more enjoyable experience than hearing something new. They rarely spoke of becoming bored with over-familiar music, perhaps because the live concert experience brings a sense of freshness to even the most familiar work.
Highlights
Since the establishment of a classical music canon in the 19th century, classical music culture has historically been focused on a stable set of masterpieces by genius composers predominantly from the classical and romantic periods
I draw on research with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (Price, 2017) in which I carried out semi-structured interviews with members of the audience for their core concert programme and the Friday Night Classics series of what I have called in this article populist classical music
More expensive tickets can often make audiences more selective, prioritising only those concerts offering a high chance of enjoyment (Pitts, 2014; 2016; Radbourne et al, 2009), and Brown (2004) has found that audiences “will pay almost anything to guarantee a home run” (p. 2); in other words, audiences will pay large amounts of money for an event that they are confident they will enjoy. These findings suggest that familiar music will provide a stronger motivation for attendance than unfamiliar music as it is less risky
Summary
Since the establishment of a classical music canon in the 19th century, classical music culture has historically been focused on a stable set of masterpieces by genius composers predominantly from the classical and romantic periods. This article explores the experiences and opinions of classical music concertgoers in relation to familiar and unfamiliar music, providing a number of reasons as to why audiences may choose to hear well-known pieces rather than new works. Semi-structured interviews were carried out to explore the reasons for their choices and their experiences of attending live concerts These interviews showed that most participants did have a clear preference for hearing music that was familiar to them, and only frequent attenders relished the challenge of unknown music. Attenders could know a piece well through playing, singing or studying, or at the other extreme, be totally unfamiliar with the work, composer or style It is possible for a work to be new to the listener but in a familiar style; to use Huron’s (2006) terms, the listener could have no veridical familiarity with a work, and yet still be able to predict the course of the music because of its schematic predictability, through its adherence to stylistic norms. Understanding how familiarity influences audience engagement demands that both the assumed popularity of the works in the programme, and the level of audience members’ knowledge of and familiarity with them, should be scrutinised
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