2015 Master’s Series: Concert 7.

All works commissioned by an American Symphony Orchestra.

Aaron Copland: Fanfare for the Common Man

• Written during WWII as on of 18 fanfare commissions from Eugene Goosens for performances
with the Cincinnati Symphony.
• Requested to be a ‘stirring contribution to the war effort.’
• Title chosen to honour those doing the fighting rather than using more exalted concepts of
Liberty, Democracy, Bravery etc.
• Listen for Copland’s distinctive open textures, driving rhythms and modal inspired harmonies.
• Percussion introduction followed by rising fanfare-like motive first presented in trumpets and
gradually introduced sequentially throughout other parts.

Joan Tower: Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman

• 1986
• Honours those exceptional women who are adventurous risk takers.
• Obvious reference to Copland’s Fanfare.
: uses same brass scoring with a few extra percussion instruments.
• Less straightforward than Copland: expectedly more complex.
: frequently changing meters, faster brass work, more contrapuntal textures
• Dedicated to Marin Alsop whose birthday is Friday October 16!

Leonard Bernstein: Serenade

• For solo violin, strings, percussion and harp.

• Deliberate avoidance of term Violin Concerto.
• Inspired by Plato’s Symposium
• Commissioned by Koussevitsky and the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
• Written for his friend, Isaac Stern
• One of several major works completed in 50s. Others included Broadway shows Candide and
West Side Story

Anton Dvorak: New World Symphony

• Written while Dvorak was Director of Music at the National Conservatory of Music of America,
New York, 1892-95
• Dvorak fascinated by Afro-American Spirituals and Native American Music. This influenced this
work in particular
• Commissioned by New York Philharmonic
• Some suggestion that his themes for this work were borrowed from American sources but Dvorak
explained they were his own motives inspired by the modal influences and colours of American
music
• Haunting cor anglais solo of 2nd movement like a lament for the displaced people of that nation.