This is an interesting discussion.
I understand your point, but I think it's a bit rigid. It is not easy to listen to new music without our knowledge creeping in guiding us on how to approach this and what should we say about it.
Countless times we've seen this over the centuries, composers who took exception to what was considered sacred forms and styles., and thank God for that! Let's take a few examples, Chopin's Sherzos, the word "sherzo" means "a joke", and traditionally, all composers used it that way, with playful compositions, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven etc. Comes along Chopin who writes scherzos, and his scherzos are no joke! So should that take away anything from the work? It's Chopin's way of expressing a scherzo.
Other example, Tchaikovsy's piano concerto No 1 in Bb minor, has that famous opening which is totally unrelated to the rest of the piece and at first considered like a disaster concerto by the pianist who was suppose to premiere it, the structure was definetly different from the traditional concerto forms. People got use to that and it ended beeing really cool.
We could find countless examples of exceptions that became the rule. So knowledge is great and essential, but is also a hurtle sometimes if we take it too seriouly.
Ok, I'm not saying, it should be the free for all,, however, music is made of rules and exceptions, Brahms and Tchaikovsy had opposite views on music, and both are geniuses.
Once again, I know what you mean, and it has its merit, no doubt about it, don't get me wrong, and I agree to some degree, however I try, don't always do that, but I try more and more to seperate the knowledge from the listening.
