The False Dichotomy Between Old And New Music

[Superhorn]

   There seems to be a false dichotomy today between old and new classical music today. On one hand,we have composers and critics who lament that there's too little new music today, and the fact that music from the past is still so popular. They romanticize the past,when allegedly"all music was new," or at least most of it. Supposedly, classical music was in a "healthier " state because of this.
  Then you have many concertgoers,and opera fans who resent being forced to hear new music at concerts. They complain that all this new music is so horrible and unlistenable. Why can't they just have their Beethoven,Brahms,Tchaikovskt and Rachmaninov at concerts,rather having all this horrible modern stuff being forced on them.
  Who is right? Actually,neither side. The fact is that we need both old and new music, and can't do without either. Yes,it would be terrible if we perfromed nothing but music from the past, but it would be equally wrong to play only new music.
  Those who claim that all music was new music in the past fail to take certain facts into consideration. First of all,if you examine what music was like in the time of Haydn,Mozart and Beethoven, the orchestra as we know it was a relatively new thing. They simply did not have the enormous accumulation of repertoire we have today. Also, there were  only a tiny number of the orchestras and opera companies in existence today. Orchestra concerts were far scarcer than today,ditto opera performances.
  Only major cities such as London,Paris and Vienna etc,had an active musical life. If you were just Joe Schmo in some remote rural Austrian village, your chances of hearing the latest work by Mozart were pretty much non-existent.
  Now we have countless orchestras and opera companies,and other groups presenting a wider variety and greater amount of classical music than ever before. Any one with a CD or DVD player,or radio or computer,etc,can hear virtually anything by any composer who ever lived.
  And furthermore, the lack of new music in our time which is lamented by some has been greatly exaggerated. New works are constantly being premiered every year by many different composers, and we can hear much more than music by"Dead white European males". 
  There  are  more  composers  alive  today  then ever  before, and  quite  a  few  can't  complain that  their  music  is  being  neglected.
  So we're  spolied  for  choice  today. Many of  us  classical  music  lovers don't  realize the  fact  that we've  never  had it  so  good.
  If  you don't  like one  thing  by  some  contemporary  composer,  you can  hear  so  much else.  We  don't  stop going  to  the  movies  because  of  one  film  we  don't  like. It  should  be the  same  at  concerts  today.
  Let's  just  be  grateful  that  we  have  so  much  classical  music  available  to  us.