There's quite a bit of repitition in classical music as well, especially in the earlier eras (take any Telemann Sonata), in part because the composition wasn't being recorded and many of the pieces were disposable.
What makes a canon of this kind - and was unexplored here - is the aspects of withstanding the test of time. Modern compositions - experimental and avant garde, all - are being tested on the audience. It's not surprising that audiences don't like them as much - in the orchestral symphonic space, we have largely distilled 350 years of compositions down to a few hundred pieces that get almost all of the play. Even within that long period, there is a heavy emphasis on the 19th century which corresponds to the Romantic period and also the industrial revolution - when it became possible for music to be written and performed on large scale. But of the thousands and thousands of 19th century compositions, only some many dozens are played with any regularity - time has filtered out the dross.
Modern compositions haven't had that filter and modern compositions also have considerable commercial competition with pop music. Orchestral compositions aren't the route to riches if you are a talented musician, so it isn't clear that modern composers of orchetral works are the best on offer.
What is irritating, of course, is that there is a smarmy smugness by the orchestral administration to pretend that rather than conducting (ahem) an experiment on the audience, that instead they are educating the benighted rubes who are clinging to Brahms and Mahler out of some character defect. No, it's that those audiences have been engaging with the orchestral repetoire, usually for decades and have come to the not unreasonable conclusion that Mahler really is better than Korngold and Weber, and that Mozart really was better than Salieri and that quality is reflected in the frequency of relative performance.
This is not to say that some of the more fringe things shouldn't be performed - Weber's clarinet concerto or Korngold's trumpet concerto are fine works worth hearing every five years or so. But compared to Titan or the Beethoven's Ninth or Mozart's 40/41st or any of his operas, well. But it is to say that most of the music written in any era is going to be dross. That isn't less true of modern compositions, it's probably moreso, because of competition (e.g. why the USNMT in soccer has such a poor history and the USNWT doesn't - male athletes have many more lucrative options than soccer in the US, options that don't exist so much in other countries).
Sometimes it's easier to think about the difference by changing the framing - think in terms of sports. It's not that Rick Rhoden didn't make some solid plays and get some good outs, but in the highlight reels of baseball in the last 25 years of the 20th century, he's going to be overlooked in favor of Jack Morris, the Atlanta Braves pitching staff of the 1990s, Andy Pettitte, the Big Unit and others who just had more stirling output.
The point I think John is making - that a key factor of human experience, indeed the telos of the humanities is a love of excellence. We love watching great sports performances in part for the surprises, but we love highlight reels because they show people performing at levels that are truly extraordinary. John is looking at it from an Aristotelean perspective - excellent at what it is trying to be - and classical music really is that - and because of it's excellence, it requires hard work to understand it, like the difference between pop science and science. But the point is, audiences and the canon have been selected BECAUSE they have proven to be remarkable and excellent. So much of what is avant garde is just trying to be different (because in almost all cases, it cannot be better. Except in the rare cases when it is, and then there can really be a shift).
So, classical music - if it is to remain excellent - will remain quite exclusive and exclusionary. So what? What we do see today tho, I think is the typical Communist "entryism". Start by reserving one piece for some member of a "marginalized" identity group - modern, woman, non-European - and colonize the entire thing. For awhile, audiences will still attend to get to the main act. But as we have seen in other areas of art - movies for example - that can be carried only so far because there really is a limited amount of time to cover the excellent stuff.
There's quite a bit of repitition in classical music as well, especially in the earlier eras (take any Telemann Sonata), in part because the composition wasn't being recorded and many of the pieces were disposable.
What makes a canon of this kind - and was unexplored here - is the aspects of withstanding the test of time. Modern compositions - experimental and avant garde, all - are being tested on the audience. It's not surprising that audiences don't like them as much - in the orchestral symphonic space, we have largely distilled 350 years of compositions down to a few hundred pieces that get almost all of the play. Even within that long period, there is a heavy emphasis on the 19th century which corresponds to the Romantic period and also the industrial revolution - when it became possible for music to be written and performed on large scale. But of the thousands and thousands of 19th century compositions, only some many dozens are played with any regularity - time has filtered out the dross.
Modern compositions haven't had that filter and modern compositions also have considerable commercial competition with pop music. Orchestral compositions aren't the route to riches if you are a talented musician, so it isn't clear that modern composers of orchetral works are the best on offer.
What is irritating, of course, is that there is a smarmy smugness by the orchestral administration to pretend that rather than conducting (ahem) an experiment on the audience, that instead they are educating the benighted rubes who are clinging to Brahms and Mahler out of some character defect. No, it's that those audiences have been engaging with the orchestral repetoire, usually for decades and have come to the not unreasonable conclusion that Mahler really is better than Korngold and Weber, and that Mozart really was better than Salieri and that quality is reflected in the frequency of relative performance.
This is not to say that some of the more fringe things shouldn't be performed - Weber's clarinet concerto or Korngold's trumpet concerto are fine works worth hearing every five years or so. But compared to Titan or the Beethoven's Ninth or Mozart's 40/41st or any of his operas, well. But it is to say that most of the music written in any era is going to be dross. That isn't less true of modern compositions, it's probably moreso, because of competition (e.g. why the USNMT in soccer has such a poor history and the USNWT doesn't - male athletes have many more lucrative options than soccer in the US, options that don't exist so much in other countries).
Sometimes it's easier to think about the difference by changing the framing - think in terms of sports. It's not that Rick Rhoden didn't make some solid plays and get some good outs, but in the highlight reels of baseball in the last 25 years of the 20th century, he's going to be overlooked in favor of Jack Morris, the Atlanta Braves pitching staff of the 1990s, Andy Pettitte, the Big Unit and others who just had more stirling output.
The point I think John is making - that a key factor of human experience, indeed the telos of the humanities is a love of excellence. We love watching great sports performances in part for the surprises, but we love highlight reels because they show people performing at levels that are truly extraordinary. John is looking at it from an Aristotelean perspective - excellent at what it is trying to be - and classical music really is that - and because of it's excellence, it requires hard work to understand it, like the difference between pop science and science. But the point is, audiences and the canon have been selected BECAUSE they have proven to be remarkable and excellent. So much of what is avant garde is just trying to be different (because in almost all cases, it cannot be better. Except in the rare cases when it is, and then there can really be a shift).
So, classical music - if it is to remain excellent - will remain quite exclusive and exclusionary. So what? What we do see today tho, I think is the typical Communist "entryism". Start by reserving one piece for some member of a "marginalized" identity group - modern, woman, non-European - and colonize the entire thing. For awhile, audiences will still attend to get to the main act. But as we have seen in other areas of art - movies for example - that can be carried only so far because there really is a limited amount of time to cover the excellent stuff.