Ed Zubrow writes:

>...  when I listen to the music of an American composer such as Charles
>Ives, I find that the folk tunes, spirituals and hymns which are quoted
>are distracting.  I can't avoid pausing and thinking: "A ha!  There is
>Turkey in the Straw."
>
>How do others feel about this and what might I do to get past it?

When Ives is the composer I don't think that you can get past it, because
Ives was not trying to incorporate American music into the musical texture.
He was instead trying to evoke a particular time and place, and he has to
be accepted or not, on that basis.  I vote for accepted, because he is
the greatest of American composers IMHO (as they say) and don't give me
Gershwin or Ellington as alternatives- it is not close.  (IMHO of course
!!!!) Other American composers are not as successful - Roy Harris, for
example.  But a fine example is Ben Johnson's String Quartet, based on the
hymn tune, Amazing Grace.  Incidentally, Beethoven did not hide those
Russian tunes in one of the Rasmouvsky Quartets.

Professor Bernard Chasan
Physics Department, Boston University