Roger Hecht writes:

>>McKelvey raised a couple of interesting points in his Overview.  The
>>first is his contention that the British symphony has not traveled well
>>to the US; that could be verified by a study of American concert programs
>>McKelvey was writing specifically about Elgar, but you don't see many
>>performances of Walton or Vaughan Williams symphonies, either--forget
>>Bax, Alwyn, etc.--while works by Germans and Austrians are everywhere.

I am coming in late on this thread.  Only read the three recent posts
to the effect that neither USA concerts nor Germans on the whole appreciate
in particular Elgar and now perhaps VWs.  I am neither German nor much
of a concert attender nor a devotee of Adorno.  However I have simply
never been able to find much in Elgar that says much of anything to me
in the way that all the obvious Austro-Germans noted do.  I do respond
to VW4 esp.  but also the VW6 but not much else.  I do respond to Walton1.

Bernard Chasan wrote:

>I am not sure that this situation represents a particular resistance to
>English music.  American orchestral programs, as Roger points out, are
>dominated by German and Austrian composers- in fact they are dominated
>by Beethoven and Brahms with some representation by Schubert, Schumann,
>BAch, Mahler and Mozart.  Even the great Sibelius is represented only
>by a single work in the n2007-8 season- the Violin Concerto.

For my taste as a life-long devotee of Mahler, I find much too much
Mahler on broadcast symphonic programs and on CD playing on classical
radio.  I hardly would put Bach into that group as he simply is not a
classical or a symphonic composer.

Sibelius is usually represented by the much over-played no.2 as Shostakovich
and Prokofiev are represented almost always by their resp.  no.  5s.
This is a shame.

Of all these composers it is Prokofiev whose works I would like to have
radio and concert audiences much more exposed to.

However this last week where I live the concert of the LA Symphony under
Dohnyani's direction which included Brahms1 was broadcast twice and each
time I was floored by it.  So in the end, I never tire of Brahms when
done like that.

I don't think that there are any profound conspiratorial reasons for the
lack of response to the British composers outside of their homeland.
With rare exceptions they never provide what the Austro-Germans and the
Russians do.

Of course that's my opinion, something that should need no explicit
statement.

Yoel L. Arbeitman

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