Originally posted by Flay
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The "effort" to learn the thing from first acquaintance is not so "great" - a couple of afternoons should do it - the more advanced ones a little more time; but once that time has been done, it's there permanently. It's considerably less difficult than (for example) a violinist learning how to play in tune in the highest positions on the instrument - but that didn't stop every composer from 1870 onwards from writing such elite Music - the average violinist of 1880 would have had to take great effort to understand and perform Tristan or the Brahms symphonies. If composers kept to what was accessible to "average" performers, we'd be left with "average" works of Music.
As for the "average person in the street" - s/he "just" listens to the Music and likes it (or otherwise) in no different ways from those in which s/he likes/dislikes any other Music. The professional difficulties of the performers are of subsidiary interest to being transported to the heights of ecstasy/boredom, I would have thought. I don't think the first reaction of anybody listening to the Denisov would be to exclaim "My God! He's expecting the performer to play seven quavers in the time of eleven!!!"
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