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A lot of Baroque music is through-composed. For instance, the Prelude and Fugue forms that J. S. Bach composed some of his music in don't contain outright repetition, or not very much. Themes recur, of course, but in different settings: differently harmonized, in different keys and so on. The two-part form features repetition that may be omitted: while it's common to perform AABB, it can just be AAB, or AB. Sometimes there is a slightly alternative ending in B for when it is followed by A again. The Rondeau form has explicit repetition: AA BA CA ... XA.

Baroque music is often highly repetitive (even fugues are a form of material repetition!) - I would think there was a distinct trend from the 1600s to the mid 1900s where classical music became more and more through composed, until minimalism became suddenly popular.

I think, you cannot have unity in a musical work if there is something new at every turn which does not reappear in any shape or form. In the best music from the Baroque era, there is new material throughout a piece. Many passages introduce motifs that do not make a reappearance. Or make a disguised reappearance just once.

I think, you will be hard-pressed to find two identical bars in a Bach fugue, where all the voices are doing exactly the same thing that was heard before. Even if a recurring theme appears, it's in a different way. Blatant copy and pasting is basically anti-fugue. Fugue-fail.

I'd agree it's rare to have exact repetition of a whole measure across all staves in a fugue, but you can certainly write a fugue using an initial theme and nothing but copy & paste with pitch shifting. Which you couldn't do for, say, a typical solo piano work by Scriabin or Messiaen...

"On the opposite end of the spectrum is Elliott Carter. He intentionally tried to avoid repetition in his works."

Yes, exactly ! That is why Elliott`s work sound like instruments talking to one another, like 4 instruments talking to each other with emotions & expressions each instrument having a specific character.

On the other hand generally we perceive some degree to repeatability as music.

My stepfather is a composer who follows in the path of Ives, one of Carter’s influences. Have been to quite a few concerts by many composers and musicians emulating Ives and Carter and others. As an amateur jazz & classical musician myself, I can understand some of the ideas my stepfather talks about, in the sense of academic concepts. The music in general doesn’t grab me or move me other than in fleeting moments perhaps, the lack of (to me) discernible patterns leaves me feeling like I have nothing to grab onto. I’d love to hear how you (or anyone) enjoy this music, what about it inspires you, what you like about it, does it evoke emotions, how is it similar or different from more mainstream music, etc. For a long time the question in my head has been, am I not enjoying this music because I don’t understand it, or am I just a person who enjoys only certain kinds of music.

> I’d love to hear how you ... enjoy this music ...

I can’t say I do enjoy that music, to be honest. When I was in my late teens and early twenties—as I said, around forty-five years ago—I was attracted by the notion that some 20th century classical composers were breaking new ground, throwing off old-fashioned constraints, being revolutionary, etc. I had studied traditional music theory and learned to play Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, etc. on the piano, and those more recent composers’ formal experimentations seemed exciting. My youthful rebellious infatuation with their music didn’t last long, and ever since I have listened to more conventional tonal music—not only Western classical but also rock, folk, jazz, reggae, etc.

I did get a bit more out of Elliott Carter when I was young, though, than I did out of other avant garde composers. Amid all the disorder there was something trippy and emotive about his music. These days, for a similar effect, I listen to Bach fugues, which have been mentioned by other commenters here. If anyone is interested, here’s an arrangement of the Art of Fugue that I listened to for the first time the other day and really liked:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_lRi9N_I7iJUGXi...

As of this writing, the musicians’ channel has all of 14 subscribers, including (just now) me.

> He intentionally tried to avoid repetition in his works. I was into his string quartets for a while about forty-five years ago but haven’t heard them since.

I'd argue that the lack of repetition led to things being less memorable.

Who would argue against some things being more easily forgotten when they aren't repeated?

> On the opposite end of the spectrum is Elliott Carter. He intentionally tried to avoid repetition in his works.

Aha! So this is what the local classical radio station was playing during its avant garde sets.

Elliott Carter - String Quartet No. 1 is, I find, a deeply deeply irritating work, moreover its advocates are pretentious in the same vein that avant garde jazz muzos are, witness the comment, "Carter always wrote such visceral, intense music for strings. I suspect he really loved the physicality of string instruments." Yeah, right, sure. Call me a philistine, I don't care. Spare me.

Stockhausen!

I don’t remember much repetition from him either

I love that joke. I will also mention Terry Riley.