Fanfare for the Common Man
Fanfare for the Common Man is a musical work by the American composer Aaron Copland . It was written in 1942 for the conductor Eugène Aynsley Goossens and was inspired by the speech of the Vice President of the United States , Henry A. Wallace , in which he proclaimed the "century of the common man".
instrumentation
A fanfare is a piece of music that introduces an event or other piece of music. It is usually short, rhythmic and loud. This fanfare was written for the following instruments:
Emergence
Henry A. Wallace's speech , in which he proclaimed the "century of the common man", inspired Copland's fanfare. Copland wrote in his autobiography:
“Eugene Goossens, director of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, wrote to me at the end of August about his idea, which he would like to put into practice for the 1942/43 concert season. During World War I, he had asked British composers for a fanfare to start every orchestral concert. It had been so successful that he thought he would do it again with American composers in World War II. "
At Goossen's request, 18 fanfares were written, but only Copland remained in the standard repertoire.
Goossens had suggested titles such as Fanfare for Soldiers or Sailors or Flieger and wrote: "It is my idea to make sweeping and significant contributions to the war with these fanfares ..."
Copland later used the fanfare as the main theme of the fourth movement of his Third Symphony (composed between 1944 and 1946).
Other versions
In 1977, Copland's Fanfare by the British band Emerson, Lake and Palmer on the album Works Volume I interpreted. The track became one of the band's biggest hits when an edited version was released as a single. It reached number 2 in Great Britain. Keith Emerson had already used Copland's Hoedown on the ELP album Trilogy in 1972 . This version was played to begin the London 2012 Olympics medal ceremonies.
Glamrock band The Sweet has been using the Emerson, Lake and Palmer version live in the middle of their own hit "Love Is Like Oxygen" for several years .
An excerpt from the fanfare was opened at the Rolling Stones Tour of the Americas '75 and the Tour of Europe '76 , which supported their album Black and Blue .
The American rock band Styx also used the Copland piece. Her debut album of the same name from 1972 opens with a suite called Movement for the Common Man . The third section of the suite, entitled Fanfare for the Common Man, is loosely based on the Copland original.
In addition, the rock band Asia often played a variation of "fanfare" during their concerts with drummer Carl Palmer from Emerson, Lake & Palmer; there are various live recordings.
Woody Herman and His Orchestra ended their concerts with a jazz version of fanfare for the Common Man . It appeared on The 40th Anniversary, Carnegie Hall Concert in 1976 .