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No surprise, really: in a BBC survey, Britons chose Edward Elgar as their favorite British composer. Elgar may not be as critically acclaimed as runners-up Ralph Vaughan Williams (second place), Benjamin Britten (third), or Henry Purcell (fourth), but he's certainly the most quintessentially British composer: the sonorous tones of his Pomp and Circumstance No. 1, which became the tune for "Land of Hope and Glory," are a highlight of every concluding night at the Proms as well as countless other ceremonial occasions. Much of the rest of Elgar's oeuvre flows from the same, or closely related, veins.
This raises the question: who's America's favorite American composer? There hasn't been a comparable survey here, and very unscientific polls by Violinist.com and Gaia resulted in the very different answers of Samuel Barber and John Adams, respectively. When we polled our audience on your favorite composers, some time back, no American even made the top ten. Probably the most accurate answer comes from Google, which indicates that Copland is the American composer most often mentioned on the Internet.
What do you think? Who's your favorite British composer? Is Copland our Elgar?
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