Quantum of Venue

The Complexity Wars of a couple weeks ago have morphed into a discussion about treating the audience and their reaction to a work as a single entity, in an Composer vs. Audience sort of way. Kyle Gann says that reaction is more indicative of venue that anything else, Soho links it in a Freakonomics-way to the dialectic of American and British broadcasting, and Dial M wonders whether performers can bear to acknowledge the apparent disconnection.

Mahler/Post (Post-Mahlerian?) concert etiquette has entirely negated any connection between performance and reception in a modern symphony. The audience is either following rules of courtesy or applauding themselves for listening, no matter what a bunch of shits the NY Phil audience might be. While the "special unique snowflake" crowd may bristle at generalizing people as such, it does give another angle to explain music intertwining with society. This is, I assume, something musicologists are allowed to do.

The problem is, to use mathematical terms, that venue is rarely, if ever, the dependent variable. When orchestras do tour, their repertoire is universally more established* than the home court programs and potential crowd aberrations are much less likely. One of the few examples at immediate memory is the BSO doing home-and-away shows with Steve Reich's "Four Organs". The breakdown is a simple one:

Boston: Quizzical enjoyment
New York: Riot

There must be something to learn from this, although it seems to endorse Gann's "bunch of shits" prognosis. While I was writing a paper on "Four Organs" last year, the riot was explained away by everyone with a phrase similar to "The New York following of the Boston Symphony Orchestra was particularly conservative." How can you say this without data points like the Reich riot? Perhaps it is a dark road I'm traveling, attempt to quantize the Musicks as such.