Fanfare for the Common Man is one of the most recognizable pieces of 20th Century American classical music. One of composer Aaron Copland's most popular works, it was written in 1942 for the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and first performed 55 years ago today.
Recognize it?
Fanfare in Popular Culture
- Copland's Fanfare was reincarnated in 1977 by British rock band Emerson, Lake & Palmer on the album Works Volume I. It became one of the band's biggest hits when an edited version was released as a single that year. Keith Emerson had long been an admirer of Copland's Americana style, previously using Copland's Hoedown on the band's Trilogy album in 1972.
- An excerpt of Fanfare for the Common Man also opens the Rolling Stones album Love You Live (1977), as it was used to open the 1976 concert tour supporting the Black and Blue album.
- The American rock band Styx has also used the Copland piece. Their 1972 self-titled debut album opens with a suite called Movement for the Common Man. The third section of the suite, titled Fanfare for the Common Man, is loosely based on the Copland original.
- Additionally, the rock band Asia (which shares the drummer Carl Palmer from Emerson, Lake & Palmer) often plays a variation of Fanfare during their live shows. Different versions have appeared on various live Asia albums over the years as well.
- The Woody Herman Orchestra was known for closing their performances with a jazz rendition of Fanfare for the Common Man.
- Fanfare has found much use as a theme for television programs. In the United States of America, the Fanfare for the Common Man was the opening theme song for ABC's Wide World of Sports.
- In Mexico, it was the main title song of TV Azteca TV sport program DeporTV.
- In Scotland, the BBC used it as the theme to their main news program Reporting Scotland in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
- The Australian television network Seven Network used it for many years as the theme music for Seven Sport broadcasts.
- A late 1970s Canadian television series called "Titans" used Fanfare as its opening theme music.
- In the mid-1990s, the song was used as background music in United States Navy recruitment advertisements.
- The Free Beer and Hot Wings Show uses a loop of the first phrase during their "Dumber Than (Eric) Zane" segment.
- When a metro train in Montreal starts, it produces the same three notes as the beginning of the piece.
- It is also played when Oldham Athletic FC come onto the pitch.
Aaron Copland was an American composer of concert and film music, as well as an accomplished pianist. Instrumental in forging a distinctly American style of composition, he was widely known as “the dean of American composers.” Copland's music achieved a difficult balance between modern music and American folk styles, and the open, slowly changing harmonies of many of his works are said to evoke the vast American landscape. His most famous pieces include Rodeo, Piano Variations, Our Town, Hoedown, Billy the Kid, The Red Pony, Third Syphony and Appalachian Spring.
Copland's my favorite composer - and Wikipedia is my favorite source of quick facts (which is where I lifted every bit of this information from).
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