“Most of the music we play,” a musician who specializes in contemporary works told me recently, “is not great. Some of it is very good, but it lacks something. It falls short. But we need to play it — not only because something great may turn up, and if we don’t play it, we won’t know it, but also because this is the music being composed now, and it ought to be heard.”
Many of their colleagues seem content to keep grinding out Tchaikovsky, Beethoven and Brahms concertos, with little concern for new works. But it is becoming clear to more and more musicians, especially younger ones, that if they are going to have careers — or even a field to have careers in — they cannot keep playing the pillars of the standard canon over and over, spectacular though those works may be.
Absolutely. There are simply so many times I can listen to Take the A train before yearning for something different. Then again, when I hear Mood Indigo ... still, innovation is important.
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