Fanfare for the Common Man

A Fanfare for the Common Man Aaron Copland

(1900-1990)

Shortly after the beginning of World War II, Cincinnati Orchestra conductor Eugene 

Goosens requested patriotic fanfares from eighteen American composers for performance during 

the orchestra's 1942-43 concert season. Each concert opened with one of these fanfares designed, 

as Goosens envisioned, to boost morale for the war effort. Amongst the composers who 

answered Goosens’ call were notable American musicians like Morton Gould, Howard Hanson, 

Darius Milhaud, Walter Piston, Virgil Thomson, and Aaron Copland. Of the eighteen, the ten 

fanfares composed for brass and percussion alone were selected for publication.

Copland’s fanfare was performed for the first time on the March 14, 1943 concert. Along 

with the composition, each composer had been requested to supply his own title. Asked many 

years later about the selection of his title, Copland responded, “I sort of remember how I got the 

idea of writing A Fanfare for the Common Man – it was the common man, after all, who was 

doing all the dirty work in the war and the army. He deserved a fanfare.”