>Kim Patrick Clow <[log in to unmask]> writes:
>
  D.Stephen Heersink writes:
>
>If anyone wants a superlative book that goes about classifying almost
>everything with considerable success and brevity, investigate Barbara Ann
>Kipfer's "The Order of Things: How Everything in the World is Organized
>into Hierarchied, Structures, and Pecking Orders."
>
>In the section on music, which is quite comprehensive, she identifies
>the following primary categories:
>
>Primitive
>Folk
>Instrumental
>chamber
>concerto
>etude
>lieder
>march
>overture
>quartet
>rondo
>sonata
>suite
>symphony
>tance
>Choral
>anthem
>cantata
>canticle
>chant
>chorale
>hymn
>Mass
>oratorio
>plainsong
>sequence
>(I think I would put lieder here, not above)
>Non-Western  . .
>Theater
>ballet
>musical
>opera
>operetta
>Jazz . . .
>Popular . . .
>
 What am I missing here? Is this just a classification scheme, or is it
in fact pecking order? If the former it is inane beyond belief. If the
latter,then is primitive music on top, or is the order inverted and popular
is on top? Looking at the detail, do etudes get to pick on symphonies and
symphonies on oratorios? Does pecking order depend on composer at all?
How does any of this help us in any imaginable endeavor?
 Bernard Chasan

Professor Bernard Chasan
Physics Department, Boston University
 590 Commonwealth Avenue
 Boston MA 02215
(617) 353-2608