Aaron Copland ‘in memoriam’
for brass,
timpani and percussion (1992)
3-6.3(1 in D, 2 in C).3.1 timp+2
duration: 3’
GRT • 016
audio sample
score
available from
Australian Music
Centre
program note
The dedication of
this fanfare to Aaron Copland (1900-1990) is something of a
coincidence, in that I was not even aware of his death when
I started writing it early in 1992. After some initial
sketches, I accidentally came across a compilation of
Copland’s music and I was stunned to discover that he had
died a couple of years before. I suppose that one can’t
always be aware of the death of important people; perhaps I
didn’t buy the paper that morning. The compilation
contained, among other things, his Fanfare for the Common
Man. I knew the
Emmerson, Lake and Palmer version but couldn’t remember
hearing Copland’s original score. Upon listening to it, I
was amazed at the incredible space in the piece. It’s not
often that you can say that a 3 minute piece sounded more
like 10 minutes and intend it as a compliment. In spite of
its stylistic purity, I find it to be a very demanding
piece to listen to. I have not endeavored to write a
similar piece, though his fanfare has grown on me in an
irrepressible way. For me, the memory of Aaron Copland
conjures up a great sense of optimism about life and this
is something that I search for in music.
reviews
"Greenbaum’s
Aaron Copland 'In Memoriam'…it was inventive resourceful
and good-humored music."
Kenneth
Hince, The
Age, March 1993
"Stuart Greenbaum, made his presence felt
with a short curtain raiser called Aaron Copland ‘In
Memoriam’, one of
a series of fanfares commissioned by the ABC. With its
flaring brass and robust assault on percussion instruments,
the piece came across alternately as a prelude appropriate
to Armageddon and a flourish of the sort one associates
with the pomp of, say, the state arrival of a monarch."
Neville
Cohn, The West
Australian, July
1993
"The fanfare by Stuart Greenbaum which
opened WASO’s Great Classics (July 16) had much to
celebrate. One of the “Aussie Fanfares” commissioned by the
ABC for this series, it used jagged brass and often
sadistically struck percussion to create a sense of nervous
pomp and flourish."
Ken
Gasmier, WA Sunday
Times, July 1993