Well, Jan is watching Animal Planet, so no Jon Stewart for me tonight.

By the way,

Helen--


If you like the Pagannini violin concerto, you might well like Saint-Saens' Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso--another violin tour de force--just stunning. The version I remember is by Zino Francescatti--but I haven't found it on CD. But Itzhak Perlman has it also.



Mack/Misophist--

Classical composers "steal" from folk? They even "steal" from each other--but it wasn't considered stealing for centuries. Also, we sometimes see folk origins where there are none. Case in point--"Going Home" from the New World Symphony. The Dvorak melody came first--the words came from one his students--it was not a spiritual Dvorak borrowed or "stole". I also believe a lot of the Slavonic Dances were in fact written by Dvorak--not folk melodies. Influence yes, wholesale borrowing or stealing, no. After all, "I Wonder as I Wander" was written by John Jacob Niles--not a folk tune he heard--though possibly based on a kernel of a traditional music fragment--or maybe not.