Symphony for the Common Man - Sydney Symphony Orchestra

INTRODUCTION
Symphony for the Common Man
In the last fi fteen minutes of this concert we’ll get to play,
and you will hear, one of the most famous motifs in
American music, the opening theme from Aaron Copland’s
Fanfare for the Common Man. It won’t ring out in the brass
with thundering timpani – at least not at fi rst. Instead it
will enter quietly, on the fl utes, and build from there. It’s a
thrilling moment all the same – fully worth the hour and
forty-fi ve minute wait.
But here’s the irony, when Copland composed his Third
Symphony in 1946, the Fanfare was only a few years old.
No television network had chosen it as a theme tune,
the Rolling Stones were yet to adopt it as entrance music,
the Atlanta Olympics were a long way off … The Fanfare –
composed as an occasional piece during war time – was
by no means famous. Copland ensured its survival by
including it in what was eff ectively the Great American
Symphony, only to see it eclipse the larger work in sheer
popularity.
Whether by chance or by cunning design, fl utes play a
key role in this concert. They introduce the Fanfare in the
fi nale of Copland’s symphony. A single fl ute plays the
haunting, long-breathed opening of Debussy’s Prelude to
the Afternoon of a Faun – a suggestion of pan pipes perhaps?
Another fl ute solo begins Takemitsu’s From me fl ows what
you call Time – here the sound evokes the traditional
shakuhachi of Japan.
The Takemitsu is meditative, almost zen-like – not the
fi rst quality you’d expect from a work with fi ve percussion
soloists – and it off ers scope for visual and well as aural
contemplation. The composer carefully specifi es the things
we’ll see and the arrangement of the space as well as the
sounds that we hear. Listening to this immersive music
immediately after Debussy’s groundbreaking work reveals
just how closely Takemitsu was infl uenced by the French
composer. The impressions and poetry of the fi rst half of
the program provide a foil for the epic nobility of Copland’s
symphony in the second, and yet all three works share a
common heritage.
Not everything the orchestra
does takes place on the
Sydney Opera House concert
platform – for Sydney
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sydney symphony 7