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Something new, eh? There's nothing new under the sun, there has never been.
is it really people that do new things, or is that people perceive things that have always been around differently (or at all) as time moves on?
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Sure there are new things, composers are always discovering/inventing/stumbling upon new things. The steady expansion of the musical "ear," first to hearing dominant sevenths, then other kinds of sevenths and ninths and thirteenths, and augmented sixth chords, and secondary dominants (hmm, maybe not in that order), and finally planing and polytonality... Bach would think polytonality is something new!
or the prepared piano, I bet he'd like that.
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Haha, what you're talking about "doing something new and seeing if people like it" is actually manipulating trends by introducing new elements into the popular/trend canon.
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Doing something new = introducing new elements, yes.
What about writing for new instruments? What about the way the symphony orchestra has changed over time, or the composers who even wrote for saxophone?
That's "doing something new" and seeing if it has artistic merit / if people like it.
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It still doesn't do anything to help the popularity vs composer problem since if everyone was able to manipulate the public like that we wouldn't be having this conversation!
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What "problem"? The composers we are taught today to revere as geniuses are praised either for being the height of the contemporary state of their art (Mozart) or for introducing JUST SUCH innovations and discoveries into the art (Wagner). In other words, they (eventually) got popular approval... I guess that makes them suspect? They were only "manipulating trends" to try and make careers for themselves?