Programming is not a morality test.

Playing familiar music is not automatically lazy. Playing obscure or contemporary music is not automatically brave. The real question is whether the performer believes in the piece strongly enough to spend the time, money, and rehearsal effort needed to make an audience believe in it too.

Musicians have limited time. Learning a serious work may take weeks or months. Nobody is obligated to spend a hundred hours preparing an unknown piece just because someone online thinks it deserves revival. The person demanding more adventurous programming usually is not paying for the score preparation, rehearsals, hall, musicians, publicity, or recording.

Sometimes the famous piece is simply the better piece.

There is also plenty of obscure music that is obscure for a reason. I have spent years searching for, editing, publishing, and playing forgotten cello music. Some of it is excellent. Some is pleasant but forgettable. Some is historically interesting and not worth performing. “Neglected” is not a musical quality.

The same applies to new music. A living composer does not deserve a place on a program merely for being alive. The work still has to communicate something. It has to justify the rehearsal time and the audience’s attention.

But familiarity can become an excuse too.

Musicians naturally choose what they already know, what their teachers assigned, what has been recorded repeatedly, and what presenters recognize. That is understandable, but it can produce the same programs over and over. Eventually nobody is making an artistic choice. They are just repeating choices made by previous generations.

Orchestras have even more to consider. They have salaries, staff, halls, donors, and ticket buyers. A soloist can take a chance and lose some money. An orchestra may be responsible for a hundred people. Programming something recognizable is not automatically timidity. Sometimes it is what keeps the organization functioning.

Still, the argument can become circular. Orchestras play familiar music because audiences supposedly want it. Audiences know that music because orchestras keep playing it. Then their familiarity is used as proof that nothing else will sell.

Audiences deserve more credit. Many listeners do not know whether an unfamiliar piece was written last year or in 1780. They know whether it holds their attention. A strong performance and a convincing introduction can do more for an unknown work than any argument about what people should appreciate.

The opposite problem is novelty for its own sake. Electronics, projections, dancers, unusual lighting, DJs, and strange concert formats do not automatically make a program interesting. Sometimes they genuinely add something. Sometimes they are just advertising.

Rarity can be a gimmick too.

A piece should not be programmed merely because nobody else is playing it. A new work should not be included so everyone can congratulate themselves for supporting living composers. A famous work should not be chosen only because the title is easy to sell.

The question is simpler: does the music deserve the effort?

Play Beethoven because you have something to say with Beethoven. Play the forgotten concerto because you honestly think the audience should hear it. Play the new work because it communicates something, not because it fills a quota.

And then perform everything on the program as though it belongs there.

The worst thing musicians can do is signal that one piece is the medicine the audience has to swallow before getting to the familiar music. People hear that attitude immediately.

Good programming is not about proving how traditional or adventurous you are. It is about choosing music you can defend artistically, presenting it well, and accepting that not every listener will like every piece.

That is not failure. That is what a real concert is.