Dick you're behaving as if Art singers and music are a threat to the tradition in some way. Traditional folk songs are pretty robust, and will outlive us all. Yes there is a lot musical snobbery in music schools. Try asking Cohen from Grannies about suffering from that, but it really is not going to do any lasting damage to the songs, any more than some pretty awful attempts at singing Traditional songs in Folk Clubs that could not be further away from the art of the Traditional singer. Peter Pears was a great singer, just not a great folk singer. Nobody dies.