What does our perception of music depend on?

The Washington Post Experiment or The Flop of the L’Enfant Plaza. (read the original article: "Pearls before Breakfast”, although it should be titled "Pearls before swine")

'Beware the barrenness of a busy life.' — Socrates

Stradivarius
violin

The following example illustrates the key factors in our perception of music and art in general.

A social experiment about perception, taste and people’s priorities was carried out at Washington subway station in the cold January morning a couple of years ago.

One of the greatest violinists of our days played incognito at the station exquisite Bach pieces (among other great composers’ works) for about an hour on a violin that costs 3.5 million dollars. Hardly anyone stopped, paid attention, or dropped a coin. Let alone recognizing him, while tickets to his concert usually cost 100$ on average.