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
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