Donald Satz writes:

>Although I am aware of the Received Canon, I do not accept it since it
>does not correspond to my musical preferences.  In the final analysis,
>each of us possesses our own Received Canon, and it likely shifts some
>over time as well.

You may have your preferences and you express them very well for the
benefit of this list.  But the canon is about the nub of things, and much
less about how they're expressed.  And the way we get to the nub of things
is by seeking, and establishing, a consensus-- necessarily a societal,
not an individual undertaking.  You sift the opinions of the established
authorities in order to set up a paradigm for what is good.  This is
essential because we are individuals, yes, but in our relations with
others we are but members of a community, or a society, or a culture.

Consider the way you couch your critiques:  the discourse depends for
its intelligibility on a canon of syntax, semantics, and the way musical
criticism uses it to get across its meanings.  Were you to try to
communicate in a language entirely your own not many others would be able
to understand you.

Denis Fodor