# Fanfares!



## 20centrfuge (Apr 13, 2007)

*FANFARES!! :trp:*

This is a thread to list, discuss, and share fanfares in the classical repertoire. Though brass and orchestral fanfares will dominate the discussion, I think it would be interesting to hear of fanfares found in less common formats such as woodwind, piano, or choral music.

At any rate, I'll start:

Perhaps the most famous fanfare is* Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man. *Everyone seems to have heard this fanfare and it is justly popular. It never fails to stir the soul. (small side note - I personally have yet to come across what I would consider an exemplary recording - if you are aware of one, please share).

Another fanfare that is just stunning is *Dukas: Fanfare "La Peri"* it's a dynamite little piece of music that you should hear if you haven't.

In a more contemporary vein is *Stravinsky's *odd little fanfare: *Fanfare for a New Theatre *(for two trumpets). I have heard it described as sounding like two cockerels fighting each other. It is in Stravinsky's late serial style and features complex rhythms. It is fantastic work. The recording with the trumpeter Reinhold Friedrich is stellar.

*John Williams Olympic Fanfare* gets played frequently every 2 years during Olympic season. Ironically, I think few have actually listened to the whole thing.

*Fanfare for St Edmundsbury, Benjamin Britten* for 3 trumpets. The three each play their music one at a time, separately, then at the same time showcasing some interesting counterpoint. The music also hearkens to the era of the natural trumpet, to some extent, by limiting the available notes to those of the natural harmonic series.

This is just a beginning to this category. I'm sure there are excerpts of larger symphonic works as well that feature fanfares. It would be interesting to hear of these as well.


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## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

I hate to be _that guy_, but Copland's Fanfare was written before the 3rd Symphony and re-orchestrated to fit into the beginning of the finale. Ironically I like that symphony a lot but find the Fanfare unbearably cheesy.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

The overture The Consecration of the House has a section of fanfares near the beginning. The triumphal scene in Aida begins with fanfares. The opening and closing of Janacek's Sinfonietta and the Intrata to his Glagolitic Mass are basically fanfares. The March of the Precious Metals in Belshazzar's Feast begins with a fanfare. The March to the Scaffold in Symphonie Fantastique is fanfare-ish. The Siegfried leitmotive in The Ring is fanfare-ish. In Boris Godunov there's a short fanfare in the Coronation scene between those big tritone chords and the hymn. The initial statement of the Promenade theme in Pictures is fanfare-ish. The opening measures of the Hammerklavier Sonata? . . .


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## Gray Bean (May 13, 2020)

Some Americana: Tromba Lontana and Short Ride in a Fast Machine by John Adams. I think these are both called Fanfares for Orchestra. 
Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman by Joan Tower. Part of a longer work.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

An album in my collection that goes way back --









It includes music composed by Philidor, Couperin, Lully, Mouret, and De Lalande.

Fanfares for the King's Supper.

I still wonder .… Did the King ever choke in the middle of his dinner while chawing on a chicken drumstick when a particularly strident fanfare blared out and caught him off guard? I think I'd rather just have some quiet music from Mantovani And His Orchestra gargling in the background at my own meals.

Okay. Not Mantovani. But some of Beethoven's, Mozart's, or Tchaikovsky's quieter pieces will certainly do.


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## 20centrfuge (Apr 13, 2007)

*Leoš Janáček: Sinfonietta* - 1st movement is a bold fanfare featuring such a hefty brass section, it would make Mahler blush:

4 Horns in F
9 Trumpets in C
3 Trumpets in F
2 Bass trumpets
4 Trombones
2 Euphoniums (as "Tenor Tubas")
Tuba


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## Knorf (Jan 16, 2020)

A different description, one I like better, for Stravinsky's _Fanfare for a New Theatre_: "The effect of the two trumpets is like that of two pennants flying and crackling in a brisk wind." (Eric Walter White.)


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## caracalla (Feb 19, 2020)

If you want fanfares, best to go back to when people believed in such things. You can certainly do a lot worse than the reign of Louis XIV and Lully's 'Airs de trompettes, timbales et hautbois pour le carrousel de Monseigneur'. I never enter a room without it.


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## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

An interesting fanfare is this one by Dimitri Tiomkin:


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## 20centrfuge (Apr 13, 2007)

Check out this skittly little dervish of a fanfare by Unsuk Chin!






I love the weirdness but I'm asking myself "what makes this a fanfare?" 
What makes anything a fanfare? Fanfares ANNOUNCE or prepare people to receive something important, right?


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

Richard Strauss: Fanfare for the Vienna Philharmonic
Lukas Foss: Fanfare
Franz Schmidt: Fanfares from Fredegundis
Ellen Zwilich: Fanfare, Reminiscence and Celebration
Percy Grainger: Duke of Marlborough Fanfare
Gunther Schuller: Fanfare for St. Louis
Morton Gould: Fanfare for Freedom
Rodion Shchedrin: Symphonic Fanfares


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Krkefenenenekjfne


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

I like the fanfare at the beginning of Shostakovich's Festive Overture. I like it so much that one time I attached it to the beginning of the Star Spangled Banner. Fortunately, nobody knew where it came from, so I didn't get hauled before the House Unamerican Activities Committee.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)




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## DaddyGeorge (Mar 16, 2020)

Bedřich Smetana: Fanfare from Libuše overture


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## sstucky (Apr 4, 2020)

Dukas’. La Peri.


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## MusicSybarite (Aug 17, 2017)

This: Debussy - Le martyre de Saint Sébastien - Fanfare from III Le concile des faux dieux


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## MusicSybarite (Aug 17, 2017)

This is also pretty good: *Henri Tomasi's Fanfares liturgiques*


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## erki (Feb 17, 2020)

Fanfare and Raga for Bassoon and Tape Emerson Meyers


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## erki (Feb 17, 2020)

Juhani Nuorvala: Fanfare and Toccata for viol and Fokker organ


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## 20centrfuge (Apr 13, 2007)

Of course there is the opening of Tchaikovsky Symphony no,4 with it's ominous grand fanfare


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## Sequentia (Nov 23, 2011)

Sorabji's Piano Symphony No. 2 contains a "Fanfare", if such a section title is enough to qualify for this thread. There is also this piece, which I discovered quite recently:


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

20centrfuge said:


> *FANFARES!! :trp:*
> 
> This is a thread to list, discuss, and share fanfares in the classical repertoire. Though brass and orchestral fanfares will dominate the discussion, I think it would be interesting to hear of fanfares found in less common formats such as woodwind, piano, or choral music.
> 
> ...


I'd say that John Williams' Olympic Fanfare is far more well known (and therefore more popular) than Copland's Fanfare.

Likely the most recognizable fanfare of them all.


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## Knorf (Jan 16, 2020)

I love the fanfare that opens Charpentier's _Te Deum_.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

I second the Ravel and Debussy in this thread. Another one of my favorites is the introduction to Monteverdi's L'Orfeo.


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## Knorf (Jan 16, 2020)

tdc said:


> I second the Ravel and Debussy in this thread. Another one of my favorites is the introduction to Monteverdi's L'Orfeo.


Good one! Just thinking about it gives me chills.


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## Knorf (Jan 16, 2020)

Here's a great one! Pierre Boulez: Fanfare for Solti's 80th Birthday, Chicago Symphony Orchestra.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

I am not sure that I would want to make it to 80 if something like _that_ was waiting for _me_.


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## Knorf (Jan 16, 2020)

JAS said:


> I am not sure that I would want to make it to 80 if something like _that_ was waiting for _me_.


Really? One of the world's most respected and revered composers, writing a piece just for you? Played by one of the world's greatest orchestras? Just not good enough? You'll turn up your nose and go, ew?

That's very sad.

Here's a cookie, instead.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

I will take the cookie. You can keep the cacophony for orchestra. (He was a fine conductor.)


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## Knorf (Jan 16, 2020)

JAS said:


> I will take the cookie. You can keep the cacophony for orchestra. (He was a fine conductor.)


It's your loss.

For the record, Boulez _was_ a fine conductor. But he was a far greater composer.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

I am happy to take as much loss of that kind as I can get. I have never heard any work composed by Boulez that I would want to hear a second time. You can have all of it. Listen to it in good health, just not anywhere within earshot of me.


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