Synopsis

On today’s date in 1943, at the height of World War II, Aaron Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man had its premiere performance in Cincinnati. The Cincinnati Symphony’s conductor in those days, British-born Eugene Goosens, had commissioned 18 fanfares for brass and percussion.

“It is my idea,” he wrote, “to make these fanfares stirring and significant contributions to the war effort.”

Besides Copland, composers commissioned included Henry Cowell, Paul Creston, Morton Gould, Howard Hanson, William Grant Still and Virgil Thomson.

Most of the composers dedicated their fanfares to a unit of the U.S. military or one of its wartime allies. But Copland’s fanfare stood out, both musically and by virtue of its title.

Among the titles Copland considered — and rejected — were Fanfare for the Spirit of Democracy and Fanfare for Four Freedoms, the latter in reference to President Franklin Roosevelt’s 1941 State of the Union Address that called for the freedom of speech and religion, and from want and fear. He settled on Fanfare for the Common Man.

“It was the common man, after all, who was doing all the dirty work in the war and the army,” Copland recalled. “He deserved a fanfare.”

Music Played in Today's Program

Aaron Copland (1900-1990): ‘Fanfare for the Common Man’; San Francisco Symphony; Michael Tilson Thomas, cond. RCA/BMG 63888