What a crescendo – not to be missed: Loudness on the musical stage

Recent research suggests that loudness, as an isolated aural quality, has an enormous ability to affect a listener’s emotional response to a musical performance – but loudness is far more complex than simply cranking the volume up or down. This article traces a history of loudness on the musical stage, exploring some compositional, orchestral, dramaturgical, and technical choices, in addition to a plethora of physical and cognitive phenomena, that contribute to a sense of musical largeness onstage, as well as its psycho-emotional consequences.