Bernard Chasan:

>>[One of the things I keep going on about -- one of those Big Ideas that
>>seem to strike me about every twenty years -- is how, in almost every
>>century but the twentieth, so-called "vernacular" music, either folk or
>>popular, has invigorated art music, and vice versa.
>
>But twentieth century composers who have used folk music include: Bartok,
>Enesco, Vaughn Williams, Chavez, DeFalla, Stravinsky, Ives, Janacek,the
>tango guy whose name escapes me, and that's just the few I can remember
>sitting in my lab after a long day's work.  Then add the composers who
>used jazz: other than the obvious Copland, Bernstein, Gershwin, you can
>add Milhaud, Poulenc, Ravel, even Debussy.  And Stravinsky appears on that
>list too.  So how do you justify the statement about the 20 th century?

Simply by listing those composers who didn't use it.  I can see now
where I wasn't clear.  I'm talking about one attitude among many and
a distinction made that wasn't always made.

Again, is Johann Strauss II a classical or a popular composer? When Mozart
writes his serenades, divertimenti, or even Zauberfloete, is he classical
or popular? When Beethoven and Haydn arrange British folk songs, do they
change from classical to popular? When Josquin writes frottolas, does he
cross an artistic divide? Notice these people got less (or even no)
critical flak than, say, Gershwin for doing essentially the same thing.

Steve Schwartz