For at least six hundred years, composers have been borrowing the melodies of folk songs and incorporating them into their compositions. And there’s a good reason: they’re good melodies; they’re melodies that have stood the test of time—that have never lost their hold on people. And even when composers haven’t borrowed actual folk melodies, they’ve often borrowed the style of folk melodies. In 1884 the composer Max Bruch, famous for his beautiful melodies, wrote a letter to his publisher, Fritz