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.

For what it is worth the Boston Symphony 2007-2008 season includes
just two English works.  The represented composers are Elgar and Knussen.
COLIN DAVIS conducts the Dream of Gerontius just as last season he
conducted the Vaugn Williams Sixth Symphony.  I would not be surprised
to learn that these performances represent a substantial fraction of
Elgar and VW performances by American orchestras over the last two years.
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.

Bernard Chasan

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