Aaron J. Rabushka muddies the waters: >Actually I would nominate Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra as a strong >contender for "the Great American Symphony" since it is a symphony in >everything but name (as is the composer's "Music for Strings, Percussion, >and Celeste"). Assigning country ownership to a composition is a vexed question I've raised before. I don't remember or indeed, if I ever knew, whether Bartok took out US citizenship. Of course, he wrote the Concerto for Orchestra in the US but even if he was by that time a US citizen, does that make it an American composition? It's an area of considerable greyness (or grayness!) Richard Pennycuick [log in to unmask]