Fanfare for the common man

Copland composed Fanfare for the Common Man in 1942, incorporating it into his Symphony No. 3 a few years later. The work’s title is taken from a speech by Henry A. Wallace, Vice President under Franklin D. Roosevelt, in which he proclaimed that the war and its imminent end would see the dawning of “the Century of the Common Man”.

The symphony crafted by Copland from the fanfare premiered in October 1946 and it is permeated by wartime heroism and patriotic fervour.

The fanfare has left significant traces in musical history; the British progressive rock band Emerson, Lake and Palmer recorded a version in 1977 and American composer Joan Tower wrote six fanfares of her own between 1987 and 2016 as a comment on Copland’s work, Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman Nos. 1-6.