Indeed, the new piece always comes first, usually for exactly the reason you specify. The idea is that people generally aren't open to new things, and sometimes you have to give them a bit of incentive to stay. Sometimes the audience is glad they sat through it. Sometimes the discussions during intermission are full of eye rolls and sighs. It just depends.
Think of all the composers who refused to write in a manner that would be 'pleasing' to their intended audiences or patrons. Mozart, Beethoven, Debussy, Satie, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, and there are many more. If they had always been forced to pander to someone else's expectations, we would be stuck with a bunch of Salieris and Atwoods. No fun at all.
"Music seems to be the only venture where the customer is not always right," you say.
Your treatment of music as a commodity to be purchased rather than as an art to be experienced scares me. Just give the new work a chance. Worst case, you left feeling nothing, but you've seen a little bit of someone else's creative soul. Go up and ask the composer what he was thinking when he wrote his piece, and why it was so weird. If it's new enough, he's probably sitting in the audience.
You're going to tell me that whether we like it or not, music as it is in the 21st century is a commodity, and it had better realize that or die. I think we had better realize that music is not a commodity. Otherwise, it will die whether or not it incorporates new music. Playing nothing but the classics won't save classical music. Incorporating them with the dynamism of new music and getting the audiences excited about it might help.
"To listen can be an effort, and just to hear is no merit. A duck hears also."-Igor Stravinsky.
Think of all the composers who refused to write in a manner that would be 'pleasing' to their intended audiences or patrons. Mozart, Beethoven, Debussy, Satie, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, and there are many more. If they had always been forced to pander to someone else's expectations, we would be stuck with a bunch of Salieris and Atwoods. No fun at all.
"Music seems to be the only venture where the customer is not always right," you say.
Your treatment of music as a commodity to be purchased rather than as an art to be experienced scares me. Just give the new work a chance. Worst case, you left feeling nothing, but you've seen a little bit of someone else's creative soul. Go up and ask the composer what he was thinking when he wrote his piece, and why it was so weird. If it's new enough, he's probably sitting in the audience.
You're going to tell me that whether we like it or not, music as it is in the 21st century is a commodity, and it had better realize that or die. I think we had better realize that music is not a commodity. Otherwise, it will die whether or not it incorporates new music. Playing nothing but the classics won't save classical music. Incorporating them with the dynamism of new music and getting the audiences excited about it might help.
"To listen can be an effort, and just to hear is no merit. A duck hears also."-Igor Stravinsky.