There was a time, within relatively recent memory, when buyers of new-music albums had a good idea what kind of music they would hear – and not incidentally, what kind they would not hear. Granted, the parameters were broad, given the range of contemporary styles and the experimental penchants of avant-gardists and electronic music composers. Still, you could generally count on hearing something that was easily rationalized as part of what had long been thought of as the historical flow of “classical” music, but sufficiently distinct to register as modern, and complex enough to stand apart from pop music.
None of that can be taken for granted now. Thanks, in part, to the early Minimalists, who exchanged the wood, gut, and reeds timbres of traditional classical music for amplified timbres, poached from the rock universe, the palette available to composers expanded enormously. That change was unintentionally ratified by the mainstream classical world: by focusing on music of past eras, orchestras, opera companies, and chamber groups left (or perhaps the word should be freed) composers to write for different kinds of groups, including hybrid ensembles of orchestral and rock instruments, on which the youngest generation (or two) of composers is now entirely fluent.
