4th music

Is it just me, or does anyone else dread those 4th of JULY concerts with their poor miking, where Stars and Stripes Forever gets blasted to bits, Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue sounds like it's being sightread and Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture (which has nothing to do with America!) blares out as the fireworks fly above and the cannons roar.    (Real ones, of course.)    Even the New York Philharmonic can sound scrappy.    Don't get me wrong--I love fireworks.    And other than The Stars and Stripes, which I loathe) all the familiar pieces are good works.    But not outside.     Where people are only half listening anyway and the orchestra is only half-playing it in response.   I long for a piece by Howard Hanson or even Leonard Bernstein (who does make a very occasional appearance) or Samuel Barber--American pieces maybe not everyone has heard.    But that is not the point of these "celebrations".    It's about comfort food for the musically illiterate.    "If it was good enough for Grandpa..."    Why not, say, Barber's Violin Concerto and Hanson's Third Symphony and Paul Creston's A Rumor?    Then 1812 Overture if you have to have it.    But no one will ever listen to me.    People want their hot dogs and hamburgers and barbeque and Gershwin (but not Concerto in F) and their 1812.     Why not just tape last year's show and stay at home in the air conditioning?    Or listen to Hanson's Third Symphony?     To my mind, a better way to celebrate.   (I'll probably go to where I can watch the fireworks and NOT listen to the concert.     I hear that awful piccolo solo in my nightmares as it is.)