Here’s an idea I had while I was learning some new pieces for my Barge­mu­sic show last week. Perhaps perform­ers, not composers, were at the root of all the complex­ity in new music, espe­cially 20^th-century music. A kind of “perfor­mance anxiety”, but not in the usual sense of the term. 

When a performer learns a newly-composed piece of music, he asks himself at a certain point: is this piece any good? Is it worth the time and effort I’m putting into it? If the question persists, it makes it pretty tough to do your job. 

But if the music is so dense and complex that even the performer can’t under­stand it, that pretty much solves the problem. Is the piece good or bad? Who cares, because it’s completely unas­sail­able! The performer’s job is reduced from cultural gate­keeper to manual laborer. Invest­ing so much in learning a piece of complex music is kind of like buying an expen­sive, unre­li­able European sports car: you have to justify it to yourself somehow, or you’ll go crazy. 

The end result is decreased risk for the performer of contem­po­rary music. That impen­e­tra­ble wall of perceived quality is trans­ferred to them. Maybe perform­ers actually put them­selves at greater risk by choosing to play music that’s more outwardly grasp-able or emotion­ally acces­si­ble. And what good are you if you don’t take risks?