You don't need an algorithmic way to decide how good an orchestra is, because subjective reception from critics and audiences is exactly the point.
And there's a fair amount of innovation in that. Audiences want novel-but-not-too-novel interpretations.
So not only there is no way to define a definitive objective metric for musical interpretation, it's even harder to conjure up an objective metric space for "possible but unusual good" interpretations.
As go orchestras, so go individual players. You absolutely are going to listen to the opinion of an experienced conductor, because being able to tell good from bad and having some insight into compatibility with existing players in the rest of the team is exactly what the job involves.
To make it worse, it's culturally dependent, and it shifts. Good today is not the same as good fifty years ago.
This actually makes it easier than software, because it very much is just about informed opinion, with external subjective feedback from audiences and critics.
>subjective reception from critics and audiences is exactly the point
Clearly software is aimed at subjective reception by its customers. We also have the adage "programs are meant to be read by humans and only incidentally for computers to execute" -- to the extent you believe this, subjective reception of the code by maintainers also matters. For these reasons I think subjective evaluations and "taste" for software / software engineers is undersold.
And there's a fair amount of innovation in that. Audiences want novel-but-not-too-novel interpretations.
So not only there is no way to define a definitive objective metric for musical interpretation, it's even harder to conjure up an objective metric space for "possible but unusual good" interpretations.
As go orchestras, so go individual players. You absolutely are going to listen to the opinion of an experienced conductor, because being able to tell good from bad and having some insight into compatibility with existing players in the rest of the team is exactly what the job involves.
To make it worse, it's culturally dependent, and it shifts. Good today is not the same as good fifty years ago.
This actually makes it easier than software, because it very much is just about informed opinion, with external subjective feedback from audiences and critics.