Janos Gereben wrote:

>I think the real question underneath these random and perhaps incoherent
>thoughts is this: Could it be that early in the next century, we'll just
>run out of new possibilities in music?

Leonard B. Meyer came to that conclusion (more or less) in his 1956 book
Emotion and Meaning in Music.  As I recall he suggested that Western Art
Music had reached a period of stasis, where probably all that could be
done had been and that composers would simply draw from the gestures and
vocabulary of the past.

While there have been advancements in the use of the digital technology and
styles such as minimalism (which is really a rehash of gestures from other
sources), it seems to me that he wasn't far off the mark in his thinking.

Karl