Without that sense of the way things have shifted over the decades, one might live under the illusion that our prevailing values are eternal, that a composer such as, say, Brahms, has always been up there on his pedestal to be admired.
Insisting on the stress-reducing effects of music, especially the soft-focused choral works of a composer such as Whitacre, is one thing.
But surely there has never been a composer who has had such an Indian summer of creativity as that of Elliott Carter, who at the age of 92 is still producing new, sparkling scores at a prodigious rate, and who was in his 90th year when he finally tackled the one musical form he had avoided for the previous 60 years - opera.
Indeed, "noise" itself and silence became elements in composition, and random sounds were used (without prior knowledge of what they would be) by composers, such as the American John Cage, and others in works having aleatory (chance) or impromptu features.
The bias against female musicians is hardly confined to Russia — and it should be remembered that composers such as Galina Ustvolskaya, Sofia Gubaidulina, and Elena Firsova achieved prominence in the Soviet Union at a time when their female counterparts in the West were struggling for recognition.
What came to be known as "spectralism" was developed by composers such as the French Gérard Grisey, Finnish Kaija Saariaho and the Austrian Georg Friedrich Haas.
"It's important that composers such as Thomas Adès are commissioned but that other artists such as Albarn are also commissioned.
Patti was considered to be the greatest singer of her time, and was admired by composers such as Verdi, Rossini and Gounod, and every discerning music lover in America and Europe.
Cultivation of the cantata in the 20th century has been fostered by composers such as Britten who are interested in older forms of music.
It's a brave composer who takes on such a challenge, and while the piece is overlong and occasionally muddy, its closing pages build a lasting monument in glorious, polyphonic sound.
