Comrades,
Many thanks for all the encouragement and useful information about the
Star-Spangled Banner. I have been swamped with kind correspondence, and
cannot hope to answer it all. I continue pursue the questions I posed, now
with considerable help.
The basics of what I've found out so far are summarized at
http://memory.loc.gov/cocoon/patriotism/loc.natlib.ihas.200000017/. The
gist of it is that there is no national law about the performance of SSB.
Stravinsky ran afoul of a Massachusetts ordinance that forbids "tampering
with national property"--evidently a statute more customarily directed at
physical structures than orchestrations!
Several folks have been keen enough to ask for more findings. I'm
compiling a distribution list, and will be glad to add anyone's name who
wishes to join.
Sincere thanks once more to one and all,
Michael Morse
Toronto
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Jul 02 2003 - 11:20:15 PDT