This is in response to Bert Bailey's comments about my post:

Yes, I am using a little hyperbole to make a point.  I know a fair amount
about modern music and the American strain of it, but the volume is not the
point, I don't think.  The problem is that very few Americans know anything
about it.  In contrast to Italians, many of whom know and love their opera,
and Russians who embrace Shostakovich and Schnittke, Americans are much
less cognizant of the music that has come out of their country.  Why?
Perhaps because our tradition basically began in the 20th century, in which
the starting point is rather high up on the "hard to understand" bar.  So,
they never get an entrypoint into the music (Russians have Moussorgsky and
Tchaikovsky to springboard into their 20th c.).  This is also a gross
oversimplification of the problem, but I think that this point has its
place in explaining it.

When I say "academic/eclectic music," I refer to the fact that most of
our composers are university professors.  The academic subsidy insulates
composers evn more from audiences (at least Haydn had to please the king)
than ever before.  That coincides with the general zeitgeist of the
century, which is towards abstruse concepts, anyway.  Those who evaluate
university professors are also extremely knowledgable and seem to dismiss
so much that springs from the people.  Getting your premieres out now also
seems to rely on that academic network.  The irony is that when critics
first observed this phenomenon, they worried that it would create music
overreliant on the past.  What happened was in many ways precisely the
opposite.

When I think of respectable (a provoking term, I know) music that average
learned people know of, I think of Copland, Gershwin, and Bernstein.  None
wrote enough, I don't think, to establish themselves as giant fixtures in
the art to which everyone, American and otherwise, can look.  Gershwin (I
always think he had the greatest potential of the three) died early, most
of Copland's output was of the nonpopulist variety and thus is ignored by
everyone, and Bernstein both didn't write all that much and, again, wrote
music that just doesn't seem destined to pass eventually into the standard
repertory (Mahler's and Beethoven's music were misunderstood in their
time but eventually passed into the canon; I would not bet my money that
Copland's and Bernstein's "serious" stuff will).  I think that Bernstein's
West Side Story, Candide, Serenade for Violin are all wonderful works that
have the essential elements of Aristotelian art: immediately accessible,
but contain the careful construction and sublime touch that characterize
GREAT art.  He didn't write too many of those, however.  (Same with
Copland's Rodeo and App Spring type stuff; they are GREAT, but all too
rare in his oeuvre).

As for the European/American thing, it's really stupid in my opinion also,
but it's there, so we need to figure out why and how to remedy it.  It's
not the only time it has happened.  In the Baroque, Italian musicians
refused to play French music.  In the Romantic era, Wagner was pretty
arrogant about the German superiority.  Hanslick dismissed Verdi out of
hand.  People want to have a home, and music is no exception.  Perhaps
it's good to have a home to be proud of!

Robert Shaw