1) A good artist comes up to the piano, bows and looks at the farthest balcony. "That's where my softest whispers have to go", and believe me: that works! With an audio-transparent screen, you take away that haptic element.
2) A good artist bows before the public and his eyes cross the eyes of some in the public: "I'll play especially for you; you, please spread the fire". With an audio-transparent screen, you take away that telepathic element.
3) A good artist interacts with the public on an energetic level. He lifts them up, they give him something back and charge his batteries. With an audio-transparent screen, you take away that energetic element.
4) A good artist strikes a bond with the public against the jury. If they go into a trance, they may start clapping where it is not appropriate. You are super if you can even make the jury clap where it is not appropriate. With an audio-transparent screen, you take away that telepathic element.
In a real live concert, however, the visual perception works differently because you know it's real and it's from a distance, so you cannot pick up so many cues anyway. You will close your eyes and listen, or look away into nowhere if the artist is good. Simply watch "Horowitz in Moscow" and see how people experience the event: closed eyes, with tears rolling down their faces. Call that mass-hysterics or whatever you want; it exists and it is one of the major factors in picking a winner in a competition.
I do not disagree with any of this - why do you think that I have denied it? Any halfway-decent artist is well aware that they are capable of affecting audiences through means that are in addition, but supplementary, to the primary product of their art. This is what showmanship is for, this is what program notes are for. This is why we train both in music programs, in addition to technique and interpretation.
Instead, I pose to you the question - what makes you think that such rapport between audience and performer cannot be induced by the music alone? It is harder to do, but I certainly believe it can be done. Otherwise no one would ever react to a recording. You're the one who's being unreasonably pessimistic here when you claim this:
Take all that magic away and you get a bunch of people in a hall on one side checking the homework of one person on the other side. You castrate the few artists among the candidates and you essentially deprive the public of what makes a good performance.
My adding too much fire to the discussion was called "awfully theological"
No. You misrepresent my accusation. What I called theological was your seemingly intentional conflation of four elements that can and should be evaluated separately:
a) the methodology of the study
b) the results reported by the study produced by the methodology in a)
c) the interpretations offered by the study of the results in b) , and
d) the possible motivations behind the study.
This would typically be just either dishonest or unskillful, which is what I accused earlier, but it has since emerged that this matter is, both for you and for me, personally spiritual, and for you at least, also concerned with your concept of the divine. Hence, "theological."
You seem to be happy about my having identified the basis of your objection, too, so I feel more correct in my accusation.
Now, as I understand your position,
a) you think the methodology is flawed - fine, but you have not affirmed any alternative methodology you would consider more sound
that would actually test the hypothesis of the study.
b) garbage in garbage out
c) garbage in garbage out
d) you think the author had an axe to grind and was motivated to design a poor study on purpose.
My entire point is that d) is irrelevant to the soundness of a), b) and c). Plenty of people with axes to grind against institutions yet produce correct results against them. It does not matter that the author is a pianist who has failed to win recognition through competitions (I don't even know if the author sought it.)