ABSTRACT

To the folksong enthusiast, A Treasury of American Song by Olin Downes and Elie Siegmeister (Howell, Soskin and Company, 1940) brings welcome and heart-warming recognition. For the past fifty years, the folksong collector, excitedly discovering the musical treasures of the back-country and the back-alleys, has called on the musician for help and for approbation. The help received has been part-time and largely amateurish—time taken from more important concerns. Approval and understanding have manifested themselves in occasional spurts of interest and in rather condescending and self-conscious arrangements or thematic use of American folksongs.