The article is devoted to the understanding, in historical retrospect, of the concept of “new simplicity” and the study of the causes of its emergence in the composers’ works of the 20th — beginning of the 21st century. The article identifi es in music four types of “simplicity”, according to what formed its basis and served as a reference point for the composers in that period. The author focuses on the notions of “simplicity” as a simplifi cation of writing within the academic music tradition; “simplicity” that emerged on the basis of minimalist thinking; “simplicity” as “austerity” in the works of “sacred minimalists”; “simplicity” as rejection of new resources and appealing to the previously created material. The author suggests that, by refusing “novelty” in favor of “familiar” elements, composers become freed, to some extent, from the pressure to invent a new material. Thus, within the framework of “new simplicity”, the subject of musical utterance is represented by the echoes of what the others have already said, which declare not so much individuality as detachment from it.