It’s good to read about an orchestra that is deliberately expanding the orchestral repertoire. The Louisville Symphony Orchestra regularly commissioned and performed new works for many years. I’m not sure if any of them have actually entered the repertoire.

For several decades after the Second World War, new music was often poison at the box office. That’s because too many of the best-known composers viewed the audience for classical music with undisguised contempt. The situation started to change at least 30 years ago, but not enough people have noticed.

I think the real problem today is not so much that orchestras aren’t playing new music, but that they’re not playing any of the same pieces often enough. So new music is always new and has no chance to become familiar.

There’s no reason for any given orchestra to play any piece in the standard repertoire more than once every five or ten years. Other orchestras will play it in the mean time. It will get radio play. People can buy recordings. And they will, because they know about the piece.

How is anyone to know if Adam Schoenberg’s piece is any good? Will the Phoenix Symphony play it again next year? And again in a couple of years? Will very many other orchestras? Will enough people even know it exists so they can get curious?