Listening behavior
The academic debate on the eighteenth century's modes of listening mainly centres around operas. However, as these discussions of concert behaviour provide an analysis of this period's social and musical context, these theories may shed light on how listening behaviour in pleasure gardens can be understood. Cultural historian James Johnson traces the transformation of listening behaviour between 1750 and 1850. In this period the Parisian audience made a transition from inattentiveness to absorbed listening. Johnson asserts that musical meaning is "shaped by dominant aesthetic and social expectations that are themselves historically structured" (Johnson, 1995, p. 2). Thus, listening is historically informed and subject to change. First, the structure of society shapes expectations and generates social rules of how an audience receives and interprets music. Based on newspaper articles and opera goers' memoirs, Johnson derives that the opera's main function was that of a structured hierarchical social setting where the court and aristocracy put themselves on display and carefully observed the audience instead of the spectacles taking place on stage. The opera's boxes were instrumental in the display of social power, as visibility was an indicator of one's social standing. In Johnson's view, the opera was governed by courtly etiquette, reputation and it was a social duty to regularly attend performances. As guests constantly moved around the various boxes and made conversation, Johnson concludes that the music served as a mere ornament to the setting. Observing other guests was part of a learning process to adapt the conventions celebrated by the aristocracy and royals. Careful examination of others' reactions became a means to determine which musical performances to praise or critique.
Second, reigning aesthetic expectations further hindered attentive listening: "Music washed over the senses and seldom touched the souls of spectators in the mid-eighteenth century. In fact, their understanding of musical expression virtually excluded the possibility of profound musical experience" (Johnson, 1995, p. 35). Johnson claims that music was subordinate to plot and text, with the consequence that music had no meaning if it was not connected to an image or words. "It followed that if you couldn't describe what the music meant, it had no meaning" (Johnson, 1995, p. 36).
Historian William Weber argues against notions that favouring nineteenth century listening behaviour over eighteenth century concert behaviour and modes of listening. Weber problematizes Johnson's assertion that eighteenth century listening habits had little to do with serious music appreciation as such judgements project today's historically informed idealized concert behaviour as the sole mode of true listening. Weber therefore suggests a different approach entailing the contextualisation of eighteenth century musical culture without distorting these accounts by applying today's ideologies on concert- and listening behaviour. By examining the social and musical contexts, Weber avoids the categorical problem of questioning whether people listened or not during this century. Weber emphasizes that today's notions of classical music and concert experience are historically informed by nineteenth century ideological constructs about listening and that early music can only be rightfully understood when these musical cultures are analysed in their own terms (Weber, 1997, p. 679).
Weber argues against Johnson's claim that the sole function of the eighteenth-century opera was a meeting place, where the aristocracy gathered as part of a social duty to take part in the 'seeing and being seen routine'. The rigid distinction between amusement and absorption is an over-simplified account of musical cultures according to Weber. Eighteenth-century musical culture was indeed closely linked to a social context, however, this does not imply that concertgoers did not pay serious attention to music. The key to understanding eighteenth-century concert behaviour is to examine how the life of the upper classes was integrated in society in both social and musical terms. First, Weber remarks that music was more accessible to a broad audience as it was less knowledge intensive as today's classical concerts. While a distinction was made between artful and mundane music, both the opera as well as concerts of folk songs were attended by a mixture of social classes. Second, in spite of the opera serving as a social setting and a meeting place, this does not indicate that opera goers did not listen to the music at all. The modes of listening just do not meet today's standards of absorption.
Promenading and listening
Being one of the first public venues to offer musical entertainment to anyone who could afford the relatively low entrance fee, it can be argued that the majority of the pleasure gardens visitors did not have any concert or opera experience. Lacking a frame of reference, there was no listening and concert behaviour for the larger public to mimic. While members of the elitist classes regularly attended the opera, lower classes lacked such experiences. Therefore it is highly contestable to apply Johnson's views to pleasure gardens. Weber, in turn, provides a better starting point as it allows to examine listening behaviour in its social and historical context. Weber (2008) remarks that eighteenth-century musical culture is characterised by miscellany. The variation of Vauxhall's musical program, for instance, fits in this trend; the audience was accustomed to contrasts in concert programs and expected variations between pieces such as alterations between instrumental, vocal and genres in pieces. Miscellany additionally entailed social etiquette, as concertgoers were expected to adapt to the varying wishes of a broad audience with different tastes in music: "This mixture reflected the presumption that different tastes, expectations, and social behaviors would make common company within inclusive programs" (Weber, 2008, p. 16).
The analysis of the pleasure gardens history and social context shows that the meaning of these venues and music should not be framed in terms of listening, but in terms of musicking. Applying Small's concept of musicking to eighteenth century pleasure gardens, it is possible to identify a number of activities, relations and features of the location which are all involved in the process of musicking, such as the gardens' architecture, curiosities, musical and entertainment program, the act of seeing and being seen and the diverse set of social relationships and rules governing the limited social intermingling.
A fusion of listening behaviour
Interestingly, listening and concert behaviour at the Dag van de Romantische Muziek (DRM) have roots in both the concert hall regime of attentive listening as well as in the pleasure gardens' promenade concerts. The silent zones surrounding the large podia facilitate attentive listening. The fact that guests sometimes point out to other guests that they should be quiet in the silent zone additionally shows that the DRM also raises expectations of attentive listening similar to concert halls. Comparable to pleasure gardens, the DRM features several stages and in the specific case of Rotterdam the pop-up stages are meant to facilitate different modes of listening as well as a way to retain guests' attention. The pleasure gardens' miscellany in concert program can be more or less found at the DRM as well, where classical music, both instrumental and vocal, is alternated by other genres such as gypsy music and tango.