(Please note this is a response to multiple children of this parent posting, not the parent post itself.)
Normally I don't bother to respond to the uninformed commentary that often gets posted on Slashdot, but I couldn't help myself. Here we have multiple people passing off elementary amounts of music theory they've absorbed from somewhere as evidence they have an informed opinion supporting their notion that "populist" classical music is not as "complex" as some rock or rap music (which they haven't offered any examples of).
First of all, we have more than one person claiming that "complex" chords used in rock (infrequently at that) are more "sophisticated" than what was used in classical music of the 18th and 19th centuries. One poster states "Hendrix habitually threw 7ths, 9ths, augmented 4ths into his chords; intervals which (apart from possibly the occasional 7th) Mozart's audiences would never have tolerated." Sevenths are more than "possibly occasional" in Mozart's work: they're pretty fundamental to some progressions. (And dominant seventh chords -- among the most commonly used and "traditional" -- contain augmented fourths.) If someone can't hear that, they're not arguing intelligently, and I would infer they don't really understand what they're listening to. (If they were to say "Hendrix was more baldly obvious about throwing these intervals into his chords", then yes, I would agree.)
Furthermore, to stick with Mozart, consider his String Quartet in Eb, K428. The opening measures feature, yes, a prominent augmented fourth, and further chromatic harmony. (There are more examples where that came from. Some of Mozart's "Haydn quartets" were sent back by the engraver, who thought they were "riddled with errors" because of the dissonances, whole-tone progressions, and such Mozart employed at times.) Of course, Mozart's aim wasn't to create something stark-sounding that didn't resolve, as that would fundamentally not have fit with the overall form he was trying to create.
Ah, yes, musical form, something completely missing from this discussion of "complexity", where people are claiming Mozart, Beethoven, et al. are not "complex" as some random favourites of theirs. Classical music from roughly the time of Haydn on carries a significant component of its dramatic message in its form, that is, how the music is developed over time. A decision made by a composer at one point will potentially have dramatic ramifications minutes later as the piece unfolds. This is rather different from pop music, where typically very simple elements are repeated over and over again, or in the case of some "progressive rock", somewhat simple elements are baldly juxtaposed "with the subtlety of a blowtorch" (to borrow a phrase of a critic mocking Emerson, Lake, and Palmer which I particularly liked -- the phrase, that is). An understanding of form and musical development is much more significant in appreciating the music than the simple recognition of "a few conventional harmonic structures" (misleading as that statement is). (I would also hazard a guess that these posters are not very familiar with 20th/21st century composition that grew out of the classical tradition, but that's another topic.)
Similarly, there are many dissonant progressions in a lot of Baroque music, as the understanding and application of harmony was different in that time, because those composers' idea of musical form was in turn different. Bach was less concerned about resultant harmonic effects than he was with counterpoint.
Ah, yes, counterpoint, something else missing from this discussion. Counterpoint is the art of creating multiple melodies that sound simultaneously. If anyone on here seriously can find a rock song that can compete with Bach's "Art of the Fugue" in terms of complexity (and perhaps more importantly, skill of execution at that level of complexity), and has the ability to convincingly detail their argument, I will eat my socks. Part of the marvel of Bach is what he did with counterpoint while fitting it all inside generally "conventional" (that is, consonant) harmony. That's hardly pedestrian, quite the opposite.
Next we have the statement "But their popular works are popular because they're populist. And what makes them populist is that they are unchallenging." This once again shows absolutely no understanding of the subtleties involved in the music, including form. What makes these works great is not just that they have "pretty melodies", it's everything that goes into it. Much of it is subtle, unlike rock music, which is generally predicated on being obvious.
Claiming something is "more emotionally sophisticated" is too complicated to argue with here, though again, I don't think that poster understands the subtleties in classical music either. Claiming that rock is "more tonally sophisticated" and classical has a "fixed sonic palette" on the other hand, is pretty bizarre, because varieties of tone are used to convey emotion. There are lots of subtle colours classical musicians use to convey meaning; there's no one "violin sound", there are many. People who tend to point to other musics as having "more sounds" tend to think in terms of very basic timbres ("we have violins and synthesizers", as opposed to "we have a violinist who can get dozens of subtle tonal shadings depending on what she's doing to shape a phrase" [which in turn relates back to form])...
Do the famous classical composers of bygone eras generally throw around the kind of complex harmonies or timbres that can be found in more modern times? No, I'm not arguing they do. But what they do throw around is not something that can really be found outside of that tradition, and it's remarkable.
I'm not sure why I bothered writing all this, as it feels like I'm just bashing my head against the wall. I'm sure other occasional posters on Slashdot can sympathize, wherever their passions lie. Right now, somewhere there's probably someone who knows a little bit about a particular programming language making bold claims about obscure optimizations without knowing the side-effects, sending some poor chap into a pit of typing for half an hour to correct them.
PS If someone's actually read this and cares, that is, is curious to know more, I recommend Aaron Copland's "What to Listen for in Music" as a good starting point for a classical music novice. Yes, it's a bit dated-seeming, and yes, he's prejudiced and snobby about what he thinks is good (I prefer "passionate"), but he does an excellent job of summarizing things in a readable way.
