Trumpet flourishes announced important events and lent dignity to government officials as early as the Middle Ages. Only in the time of Napoleon did anyone recognize an opportunity to compose fanfare music instead of relying on trumpets’ random blaring to make noise. Very few fanfares have entered the symphonic repertoire. Aaron Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man” is preeminent among them.

At the outset of the Second World War, Eugene Goosens decided to start each concert of the 1942-1943 season with a patriotic fanfare. Copland contributed one of eighteen. No one considered these fanfares anything more than occasional music. “Fanfare for the Common Man” surpassed all expectations and became one of Copland’s best-known pieces.

Who was Aaron Copland?

Childhood and musical education

Aaron Copland was born in Brooklyn in 1900, the youngest of five children. His parents, both Jewish immigrants from Russia, owned a department store. Copland’s father had no particular musical interests, but his mother played piano and sang. She saw to it that her children took music lessons.

The older siblings had not shown much interest in theirs, so when Aaron asked to study piano, his parents merely agreed to pay if he would find a teacher. He decided he wanted to be a composer when he was 15 after hearing a piano recital by Ignace Paderewski.

Eventually, he took lessons from Rubin Goldmark. Goldmark gave him a solid foundation but disapproved of any composer later than Richard Strauss. Copland wanted to write more imaginative music than he ever dared to show Goldmark.

The French government offered a summer school for American musicians, and with his mother’s support, Copland attended it in 1921. Then, friends suggested that he take a harmony class with Nadia Boulanger. After that, he decided to study composition with her, even though he had never heard of anyone learning composition from a woman. Boulanger soon emerged as one of the most influential composition teachers of the twentieth century.

Making an American sound in concert music

In 1924, just as Copland was getting ready to return to the United States, Boulanger introduced him to conductor Serge Koussevitzky, who was getting ready to become music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Copland had written only one orchestral piece by that time and played it for Koussevitzky on the piano. Koussevitzky immediately told Copland to compose an organ concerto for Boulanger to play and him to conduct.

Copland recognized that French and German composers had identifiable national styles. Americans had jazz and Tin Pan Alley popular songs that were gaining international recognition, but no distinctly American concert music. With Boulanger’s encouragement, he determined to find the right sound.

Besides jazz, Copland drew inspiration from the music of Charles Ives and Carl Ruggles. He became an American modernist. He had the typical modernist attitude that he needed only to write for other modernists and the public would catch up eventually.  When the Great Depression started, it became an expensive luxury he could no longer afford.

Along with other composers, Copland determined to find ways to connect with a wider audience. Part of his strategy involved composing incidental music for plays, movies, and radio. He adopted a more popular style so successfully that other composers criticized him for selling out. Beginning with El Salon Mexico in 1936, his music achieved international fame. Copland became acknowledged as the dean of American composers.

18 patriotic fanfares

Just months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Eugene Goosens, conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, decided to open each concert of the upcoming season with a patriotic fanfare.

He requested fanfares from 16 prominent American composers, plus the French composer Darius Milhaud, then living in the US.  He suggested a title along the lines of “Fanfare for Soldiers.” Since he had no budget, he had to ask them to donate their music. The final piece in the set was his own composition.

Here they are, along with the dates of first performance:

1. A Fanfare for Airmen, Bernard Wagenaar, Oct. 9, 1942
2. A Fanfare for Russia, Deems Taylor, Oct. 16, 1942.
3. A Fanfare for the Fighting French, Walter Piston, Oct. 23, 1942.
4. A Fanfare to the Forces of our Latin-American Allies, Henry Cowell, Oct. 30, 1942.
5. A Fanfare for Friends, Daniel Gregory Mason, Nov. 6, 1942.
6. A Fanfare for Paratroopers, Paul Creston, Nov. 27, 1942.
7. Fanfare de la Liberté, Darius Milhaud, Dec. 11, 1942.
8. A Fanfare for American Heroes, William Grant Still, Dec. 18, 1942.
9. Fanfare for France, Virgil Thomson, Jan. 15, 1943.
10. Fanfare for Freedom, Morton Gould, Jan. 22, 1943.
11. Fanfare for Airmen, Leo Sowerby, Jan. 29, 1943.
12. Fanfare for Poland, Harl McDonald, Feb. 5, 1943.
13. Fanfare for Commandos, Bernard Rogers, Feb. 20, 1943.
14. Fanfare for the Medical Corps, Anis Fuleihan, Feb. 26, 1943.
15. Fanfare for the American Soldier, Felix Borowski, March 5, 1943.
16. Fanfare for the Common Man, Aaron Copland, March 12, 1943.
17. Fanfare for the Signal Corps, Howard Hanson, April 2, 1943.
18. Fanfare for the Merchant Marine, Eugene Goossens, April 16, 1943.

Some of these composers had the same idea as Copland to choose a more general title. Still’s piece specifically salutes black soldiers. Most of these fanfares are still available for sale as sheet music. I have found videos of those by Cowell, Still, Gould, and Hansen, as well as arrangements of those by Creston and Milhaud.

Any of them could still suitably introduce an orchestral concert, but Copland’s stands out.

Composition of Fanfare for the Common Man

Goosens sent his offer to Copland in August 1942 and said he would like to use the new fanfare to open the season on October 9. Clearly, he had nothing more in mind than occasional music. At first, Copland had in mind to turn down the invitation because he needed money. Eventually, he agreed, but he had to work on the fanfare in spare time from other projects such as Danzón Cubana and Appalachian Spring.

Whatever Goosens had in mind, Copland did not dash off a typical fanfare. He later wrote, “The challenge was to compose a traditional fanfare, direct and powerful, yet with a contemporary sound.” The other composers faced the same challenge. Not a one came close to the dignity and emotional power of Copland’s.

His fanfare starts with drum bursts. It continues with a slow, solemn melody by unison trumpets before gradually adding the rest of the orchestra’s brass section.

The impatient Goosens wrote on September 28 that he didn’t care if the fanfare was solemn or cheery, just so he got it eventually. Copland finally delivered the fanfare way too late for it to serve as the season opener. Goosens used “Fanfare for Airmen” by Bernard Wagenaar instead.

Wartime conditions

Before considering Copland’s thoughts as he composed his fanfare and chose the title, it is useful to make a small digression to consider what life in the US was like at the time.

The Second World War, like many earlier ones, caught the US government off guard. Joining the war on two fronts required not only rapid deployment of troops but making equipment.

The government redirected the entire economy to the war effort. It imposed rationing of food and fuel. It required many manufacturers to stop producing their regular products in order to produce weapons and military equipment.

Income taxes were due on March 15 in 1942. Only one in seven workers had managed to save enough to pay the tax bill. Later that year, Congress required employers to withhold money from paychecks to pay taxes.

The phrase “common man” certainly describes the troops who fought the war, but it also describes the people at home who made such tremendous sacrifices to support them.

How Copland decided on the title Fanfare for the Common Man

Copland rejected Goosens’ suggestion to name the fanfare for a branch of the military. He wrote and erased at least two titles still discernable on the manuscript: “Fanfare for the Rebirth of Lidice” (where the Nazis had committed a massacre) and “Fanfare for the Paratroops.” He also considered “Fanfare for a Post-War World,” “Fanfare for the Spirit of Democracy,” and “Fanfare for Four Freedoms.”

As Copland struggled to decide on a title for his fanfare, he listened to a speech by Vice President Henry Wallace. One particular sentence caught his attention: “Some have spoken of the American Century. I say that the century which we are entering, the century which will come out of this war, can be, and must be, the century of the common man.”

Upon hearing that phrase, Copland had his title.

The title probably contributes to the fanfare’s success as much as the quality of the music. Could anyone hear it the same way if he had called it “Fanfare for Paratroops”?

Reception of Fanfare for the Common Man

Copland sent the fanfare to Goosens in November. Goosens wrote back, “Its title is as original as its music” and suggested performing it on March 12 and 13. That was a few days before income tax was due. So the common man in Cincinnati would be hearing the fanfare after patriotically struggling with their victory tax. Copland wrote back to explain the origin of the title but agreed that the timing of the performance was a “swell” idea.

Copland did not attend the performance of his fanfare. He probably expected that, like most occasional music, it would be played and quickly forgotten. On the other hand, he knew he had produced really good music. So he used it in his Third Symphony (1944).

Goosens’ thank you letter called the fanfare the finest of the series, “not to flatter you, but merely to put on record what we all felt.” In not providing a typical flashy fanfare, Copland captured the mood of a populace who was sad over all the news of death and destruction.

At least some of the other fanfares still serve occasionally as concert openers, and not only in the US. But none has achieved the worldwide reach of “Fanfare for the Common Man.”

After diligent searching, I have no idea when or where the second performance took place. By the 1950s, “Fanfare for the Common Man” had become well known. It was performed at Richard Nixon’s presidential inauguration.

Not only has it been performed countless times in the 80 years since its premiere, it has been arranged for countless combinations of instruments, including handbell choir.

Woody Herman, the Rolling Stones, and Emerson Lake & Palmer have made pop arrangements. It has been heard in movies, television shows, and even commercials. Joan Tower composed six “Fanfares for the Uncommon Woman,” a title that would mean nothing if it didn’t refer to Copland’s title.

Sources:

18 fanfares for wartime / Janelle Gelfand, Cincinnati Enquirer. November 4, 2016
Copland’s Fanfare: The making of a musical monument /Janelle Gelfand, Cincinnati Enquirer. November 7, 2016
Fanfare for the Common Man / Library of Congress
How did Aaron Copland’s ‘Fanfare for the Common Man’ get its name? / Jake Romm, Forward. February 17, 2017
The man behind the music / Vivian Perlis, AaronCopland.com