yeah with jazz it played a big part. not even going to deny that. but classical... it was a given that didn't revolve around the individuals so much. the compositions far out lasted the performances. of course during the hey day there were no recordings, and what remains is merely the accounts of performances far and few between. every now and then you hear about a stellar soloist (really rare), a great conductor (often the composer himself), or a talented orchestra. but those were all given for the realization of the composition. it wasn't inherent in the performers themselves.

and so jazz was really a break from that in that it spotlighted the performer in as much regard as the orchestra and the composer once held. and those performance were truly a great part of the rise of jazz to the levels it achieved. but still the palate of expression layed around the composition, or in the case of jazz the compositional structure. within jazz the compositional structure was much freer than in classical and this freed the performer to take the spotlight.

this can be paralleled with the way that the strict confines of western theory created the structure by which the composition in its era could be given the spotlight, first by working within those rules and then by branching beyond them.

so it follows that these successions of eras need not walk in the exact same footsteps as their predecessors, but rather must navigate new grounds which those that went before were unable to do. and in this way electronic music fits the bill perfectly.
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Heads Up:
Prince "The Gold Experience" Track #12
Avy - http://vanguard.avanturb.com