One of the most striking developments in the last 20 years is that so many of those European publishers are making a lot of their study scores free to read online. Apparently they have given up trying to make money from ordinary music lovers and are OK with selling just to performers and libraries. Back when I became a huge fan of a somewhat lesser-known European avant-garde composer, I despaired that it would cost many, many thousands of euro to buy the study scores of all his pieces. Now they are right there for free on the publisher’s website.

Otherwise, piracy largely fills the gap, although many composers have some famous piece, the score of which is impossible to ever see. Boulez’s Répons and …explosante-fixe… are my usual examples of this – all the rest of his scores have circulated in pirate circles for well over a decade. Someting like Magnus Lindberg’s KRAFT is probably not easily found because its score is a meter tall and therefore difficult to scan.

More information here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bp2aowF0jUw