Modification, Fusion, Deconstruction

It is generally accepted that musical genre usually acts as a media or contract between the production and reception of music. A particular generic title implies a particular way of discourse, and supposes a set of particular rules for communicating by which the composer composes and the listener appreciates. However, this idea should be researched deeply because of the fact that the composer are often inclined to apply a given genre in a flexiable way, which usually means deliberate deviations from the rules of the genre in order to realize some rhetoric intention. Moreover, there are so many different means, effects and purposes of such application that a study which deals with the laws of the rhetoric power of genre is necessary.This study, with the aim to expose the principles, ways, means, effects (etc.) of the rhetoric power of musical genre, focuses on the rhetoric pheonomena of musical genre in the period from the Classical period (c. 1780) to the twentieth century.The present study is divided into three chapters, and each of them deals with one special pheonomeon of musical genre: modification, fusion, and deconstruction. Each of the chapters includes three parts which examine the several detailed aspects of the each pheonomena aboved: the first is a historical study (the history), the second, systematical (the type), and the third, individual case study (the effect). As to the examples, which the author used to testify the theories, would roughly coverd four major musical genre categories (symphonic music, solo and chamber music, stage music, and religious music ) of the three periods (Classic, Romantic, and the 20^th century). At last, in the conclusion, several qualities of the rhetoric application of musical genre, such as its rationality, fertility, validity, universality and regularity, are explained.