[zopa]

Bring on the art music discussion! 1) What ever-growing sophistication? Everything you can do with chords and harmony was done by Bach. The next 150 years were variations on that theme. 2) That Stravinsky and Bartok, et ali, are still seen as "edgy" says more about orchestras' willingness to educate their audiences than it does about Stravinsky, or Bartok.

And 3), rock and roll didn't kill art music, or rise from its ashes. It's a separate thing all together, with its roots in earlier popular music genres. (jazz, bluegrass, the blues...) Rather there was significant cross-fertilization between rock and the not-quite-dead-yet art music sub-genre of minimalism.