20:29 Sep 8 

Thanks very much, Jim for guidance. As to the Sellers and Mozart collaboration, I really think you're on to something, Vaughn. A shame about the era(s).

18:37 Sep 8 

...implies a system of (pseudo) categorization: Type-3 or Class-3, or the like

18:35 Sep 8 

...now that we know the genre. The point is to make it sound pseudo-scholarly. A literal translation will do just fine here. Wouldn't try to put too fine a point on it.

18:30 Sep 8 

He is in fact painting the critic as an idiot, more or less, and goes on to say so - I definitely should have posted more context. Sorry. I was hoping this would miraculously make sense to someone out there ;)

I will now swallow my pride and ask the author what on earth his fictional critic meant. Thanks all for your help.

18:18 Sep 8 

I think Amadeus would have loved Sellars. And why hasn't Sellars staged Mozy's harmonica music?

18:14 Sep 8 

then you can keep exordium. Something like "type-3 exordium" -- also nothing wrong with "of the third order"

18:02 Sep 8 

Given this is apparently a satiric novel, I would keep the author's bizarre choice of words as far as exordium - perhaps the author is painting the "critic" as an idiot? The problem is guessing what playful idea of "troisième ordre" is being suggested. Religious? Pseudo- or faux-musicological? A sometimes used term for "third rate"? All of the above?

17:56 Sep 8 

... for slightly less enigmatic concision in giving the original context.

(Sorry, but there was no explicit indication that we are dealing with contemporary music, or fiction; unless you count the maracas, but that would be semantic overloading to the point of cruelty to lexemes.)

17:47 Sep 8 

Here is a musical context for exordium:

In Dressler’s Praecepta musicae poetica (1563), compositional structure adopted the formal division of an oration into exordium, medium and finis.
Find the rest of the article here: http://www.misson-si.net/Grove - Rhetoric and music 01.doc

Possibly I should have added to the list of categories: music/musicology/theory and analysis/opera/contemporary music/literature/novel/satire

Do you have an alternate suggestion to exordium?? Overture perhaps?

As to Mozart and the maracas, see "contemporary music" in categories - and the fact that this is a work of fiction.

16:56 Sep 8 

This is fairly absurd. Can you please provide more context and/or check to see if there aren't a few typos/printos lingering about?

15:44 Sep 8 

This is not a musical term, but a rhetorical one. You probably don't want to use this in a translation unless this is some kind of funky post-Schenkerian schtuss.

14:55 Sep 8 

Could it be an intro to a third section? If the maracas are "coming back" in bars 1-7, this can't be a prelude.

14:53 Sep 8 

I wasn't aware that Mozart had ever scored anything for maracas ;-)