Methods of Measurement of Aesthetic Folkways

The applicability of standard statistical devices to the field of aesthetic folkways is explored. Orchestral repertoires of the leading symphony societies were analyzed from the date of founding to the present. Various statistical measures are here applied to selected segments of this history to illustrate the degree of consensus and difference of taste between cities; the weight of conductors and political events in the formation of taste; the lag in taste between the elite and the popular audiences. Aesthetic taste, here treated empirically, not subjectively, is a complex phenomenon to which nonaesthetic factors make a large contribution.