Listeners' emotional engagement with performances of a Scriabin étude : an explorative case study

Item does not contain fulltextIn an explorative study, the variation in listeners' judgments of the emotionality of three performances of a Scriabinétude was investigated. Three performances of the Scriabinétude were recorded. Video and/or audio recordings were presented to 24 listeners who segmented the music in short phrases and indicated their emotional engagement with the music using a slider. The relation between the performance data and the listeners' responses was analysed as well as the effects of musical training, medium and musical structure. The analyses were done using multiple regression analyses and decision trees. The results confirmed the hypothesized influence of the performer's interpretation, the listener's background and the global phrase structure, though not always in the expected way. In particular the dynamics of the performance correlated with listeners' judgments of emotionality, while tempo correlated more strongly with the indications of phrase structure. This was more clearly the case for nonmusicians than for musicians. The movements of the pianist were related to the dynamics of the performance and seemed to aid the communication of emotional intensity.30 p