Denis Fodor on a musical "canon":

>And the way we get to the nub of things is by seeking, and establishing,
>a consensus-- necessarily a societal, not an undividual undertaking.
>You sift the opinions of the established authorities in order to set up
>a paradigm for what is good.

The key phrase is "established authorities." The nature of a canon is
that certain texts are to be credited and everything else isn't worthy
of the same attention, according to traditional views.  Books of the Bible
and works of English literature are the outstanding instances, backed by
proclamations of churches and literature professors.

I have been surprised to see Denis Fodor repeatedly assert that there is a
recognized musical canon for two reasons particularly.  (If he had simply
said "standard repertoire" I would have less of a problem.) First, although
there is a core of works that, chiefly through popularity and frequency of
performance, is known as the "standard repertoire," I have always assumed
that the reason for that fact was not just judgments of excellence or
greatness (because some standard works are frequently dismissed as
potboilers or warhorses) as because these are works that many performers
have taken the trouble to study and that they find the time to fit into
active performance seasons.  This may be a matter of laziness or lack of
initiative and imagination on the part of performers rather than any fully
informed judgments on their part.  For their part, average listeners accept
these works as basic because that is what they know about.  I completely
dismiss the notion that there are "authorities" we all do, or should,
accept to proclaim which works are worth appreciating, however, especially
when they do not articulate their reasons very well.  Some listeners or
musicologists are better informed than others, and can argue for their
candidates, sure.

The second and more important reason I reject the very idea of a musical
canon is that the very notion seems anti-creative, a denigration of the
enormous abundance of musical creativity.  There are vastly more splendid
musical works than can possibly fit into the performance-time limitations
of any performer or musical group even over several seasons, or which any
individual can get to know well even over an entire lifetime--and composers
continue to write them.  If we were all to accept the idea of a closed body
of acceptable works then there would be even less incentive than there is
now, in a highly competitive musical market, for composers to produce new
works.

My own view is more Darwinian.  There is an enormous production of creative
work; some of it survives and some perishes, depending in great part on
environmental conditions it meets which allow it to flourish or languish.
Some of this may be chance, for instance where a composer lives, who s/he
knows, whether a given style is current or passe, etc.  (A musician I
generally regard highly once dismissed a work I love as "hackneyed." It
isn't.) Some works pass out of the standard repertoire.  (Indeed even some
canonical biblical works came to be dismissed as apocrypha.) Let us not
have a musical canon.

Jim Tobin