Explosions Of Sound

Music Regular readers will know I'm easily touched. Oh err, what I mean to say is that I have a propensity for reacting to art at a gut level, getting far too emotional probably. It happened tonight during Prom 16 and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra's performance of Aaron Copland's Symphony No. 3.

If I was to make a cross genre list of favourite music, Copland's Fanfare For The Common Man would be in the top ten, its strident epic sound, its evocation of the brilliance of mankind at it's best. What I didn't know what that it's part of this much larger work and on listening to it within situ was like having heard just Hamlet's 'To Be Or Not To Be' soliloquy then to be told 'Y'know, Shakespeare wrote this whole play'.

What's clever is that Copland almost constructs the fanfare slowly across the work, allowing various instruments to hint at what's to come, a flute quietly skipping through the famous theme somewhere in the second movement. If you already know the tune it's really poignant, like suddenly noticing an old friend across a room only for them to leave before you can say hello.

Then the Fanfare arrives in the fourth movement and it's gut wrenching. I have what I can now see is quite a dry version on a cheap compilation. The way that the Bournemouth played it, absolutely punching out the brass and drum sections, filling my world through my new headphones just made - me - tremble. My heart thudded in my chest and I actually began to feel emotional, gripped by some primordial force, pointing to the sky (or rather at my ceiling) in time with each of the explosions of sound.

I'm not surprised that it seems to have influenced later film composers -- perhaps they're just following a tradition, but this must sure include the DNA for James Horner's music for Apollo 13, the use of the trumpet. But I'm sure I also heard the confused alien musical tones scored by John Williams for Close Encounters of the Third Kind which here appear after the Fanfare, almost like a crowd fall about in confusion after marching together. Just amazing.