I think the pedestal thing is complicated - as I see it the story of modernism was of a continued effort to remove it, practitioners aligning themselves with (at different times) engineers, architects, artisans, revolutionaries, 'primitive' cultures, the insane etc etc*... unfortunately the fact that personal expression and creativity are so at odds with the working day and the demands of business, serves to keep art locked in that separated strata which both stops it interfering with the status quo, and also provides the ultimate in saleable products - imports from the rarified realm. How this benefits the 'artists' is questionable (the cliché is that it only works for you when you're dead - not altogether untrue). But I might be being romantic when I say that the evolving art of a hundred years ago was far more resistant to being put in its special place than it is today.
*I have to say I don't know much about modernist or radical music, other than the sorts of musics that were first produced as entertainment, and later adopted by radicals as part of the effort to align themselves with something 'other' (blues, early jazz - pre-selfconsciously 'arty'), which raises the question of which 'audience' we're talking about.. also, much of the music recorded last century, away from the stage and the studio and out 'in the field' does put into perspective notions like 'rehearsal' and 'performance' - that is, work songs &co..