Here's a playlist for Thanksgiving. Not all the composers are American.

Ralph Vaughan Williams' Symphony No. 3: Pastoral

Vaughan Williams is always a good choice, except for opera. His Third Symphony was written in grateful remembrance of those killed in France it WWI.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UT8Wwohbdqc

Appalachian Spring by Aaron Copland (pictured) is a "no-brainer". I know this ballet is set in springtime but I don't care. What amazes me is that Copland wrote this while in Mexico. The music is so evocative of a North-eastern mountainside that it's difficult to imagine it being written in The Sonoran Desert.

There are four parts to this--follow the links on the sidebar.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmgaKGSxQVw

The Promise of Living is the act one conclusion of Copland's opera The Tenderland. This is Thanksgiving incarnate.

Lyrics:

"The promise of living with hope and thanksgiving Is born of our loving our friends and our labor. The promise of growing with faith and with knowing Is born of our sharing our love with our neighbor. The promise of living, the promise of growing Is born of our singing in joy and thanksgiving.

For many a year we've known these fields And known all the work that makes them yield, Are you ready to lend a hand? We're ready to work, we're ready to lend a hand. By working together we'll bring in the harvest, the blessings of harvest.

We plant each row with seeds of grain, And Providence sends us the sun and the rain, By lending a hand, By lending an arm Bring out, bring out from the farm, Bring out the blessings of harvest.

Give thanks there was sunshine, give thanks there was rain, Give thanks we have hands to deliver the grain, O let us be joyful, O let us be grateful to the Lord for His blessing. The promise of ending in right understanding Is peace in our own hearts and peace with our neighbor.

The promise of living, the promise of growing, The promise of ending is labor and sharing and loving."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMVMYjTZnbk

The entire Beethoven Pastoral Symphony would work for Thanksgiving but I'm going with the finale movement: Shepherds Hymn. It appears that I associate Thanksgiving with pastoral settings.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Do3tL7oEAt8

Morning Mood from Grieg's Peer Gynt is something of a stretch for Thanksgiving. Here we have a Norwegian composer eliciting a sunrise in Africa. Deal with it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAbwMGZtIsY

One more Grieg piece and I think we've got a solid hour of music if you listen to all of Appalacian Spring. The final piece is from Grieg's Holberg Suite. The Holberg Suite was written to be reminiscent of the the time of Holberg, which is to say the 18th Century.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjoBxMR095g&feature=related

I've created a playlist on YouTube if you want all these selections together.

http://www.youtube.com/user/garrettwharris?feature=mhee#g/c/EFBBC4B66A0F2B00