When Mozart repeated a theme six or eight times, it was to help the memory store it for later recall. I do not think it was accidental, therefore, that Schoenberg and his followers sought to achieve a musical style which was athematic (i.e., without repetitions and recapitulation) about 1910, at the same time as recording became commercially successful. From then on the recapitulation was on the disc. … At first it seems paradoxical that in a dynamic and revolutionary era most people should prefer the music of the past, until we realize that for the vast majority of humans today music no longer functions as the antennae of the spirit but as a sensory anchor and stabilizer against future-shock.

Schafer, Murray R, The Soundscape- Our Sonic E…, loc. 409