What makes music sound American?
There is no single American orchestral sound. Aaron Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man uses brass and percussion to create a public ceremony—spacious, deliberate and monumental. Samuel Barber’s Violin Concerto answers with a far more private voice: long lyrical lines, emotional directness and a finale of relentless motion.
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Barber’s Essay No. 2 compresses a larger and more complicated musical argument into ten concentrated minutes. George Gershwin then takes the orchestra into the streets, mixing symphonic writing with jazz rhythm, blues-inflected melody, city noise and even Parisian taxi horns.
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Together, these three composers offer very different ideas of American identity: collective and individual, reflective and exuberant, rooted at home and energized by encounters with the wider world.
Aaron Copland: Fanfare for the Common Man
In 1942, conductor Eugene Goossens invited American composers to write brief fanfares honoring those contributing to the nation’s wartime effort. Copland chose not to celebrate a general, battle or military victory. His subject was the ordinary citizen.
Three powerful percussion strokes clear the air before the trumpets enter with the principal idea. Horns, trombones and tuba gradually join them, expanding the music’s weight and sonority. The pacing is deliberate; every entrance feels ceremonial.
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The fanfare lasts only about three minutes, but Copland makes its limited forces—brass and percussion alone—sound spacious and monumental. Heroism here does not belong to one person. It belongs to everyone.
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Listen for:
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The opening strokes of bass drum, timpani and tam-tam
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The solitary trumpets introducing the principal theme
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Additional brass instruments gradually enlarging the sound
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The spacious silences that make each statement more powerful
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The final transformation of a simple musical idea into a public declaration
Duration: 3'
Samuel Barber: Violin Concerto, Op. 14
Barber’s concerto begins without a dramatic orchestral introduction. The violin enters almost immediately with a long, lyrical melody, establishing a personal voice at the center of the work.
The first two movements are expansive and songful. Soloist and orchestra exchange melodies with unusual intimacy, while individual woodwinds frequently emerge as the violin’s conversational partners. The second movement begins with an expressive oboe solo before the violin enters and carries the music toward its emotional summit.
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The finale changes everything. Marked Presto in moto perpetuo, it launches the violin into nearly continuous motion. The lyricism of the opening movements gives way to speed, precision and concentrated energy—a brilliant conclusion that tests the soloist’s stamina as well as technique.
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Listen for:
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The violin’s warm first entrance
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Individual woodwinds conversing with the soloist
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The oboe melody that opens the second movement
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The gradual intensification near the movement’s emotional climax
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The finale’s almost uninterrupted stream of rapid notes
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The contrast between lyrical expression and sheer physical momentum
Duration: 25'
Meet Risa Hokamura
Risa Hokamura is an internationally recognized Japanese violinist who gained prominence at seventeen after winning the 2018 Young Concert Artists International Auditions and the Silver Medal at the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis. She has since appeared in recital at the Kennedy Center and Merkin Concert Hall and performed with leading orchestras throughout the United States and Japan. A full-scholarship master’s student at the Manhattan School of Music, she performs on the 1715 “Joachim” Stradivarius, on loan from the Sasakawa Music Foundation.
Intermission
Samuel Barber: Essay No. 2, Op. 17
Barber called this work an “essay” rather than an overture, poem or symphony. Like a literary essay, it develops a central argument within a concentrated form. Several musical ideas are introduced, reconsidered and brought together over the course of approximately ten minutes.
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The music begins quietly and seriously before gathering tension. Agitated figures move through the orchestra, a marchlike idea emerges and the brass eventually transforms the accumulating material into a broad statement. Yet the work does not offer a simple journey from darkness into triumph. Its conclusion retains something unsettled and questioning.
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Written in 1942, the same year as Copland’s fanfare, Essay No. 2 reveals a very different wartime American voice: inward, complex and emotionally ambiguous.
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Listen for:
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The restrained, searching character of the opening
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Short ideas passing between different sections of the orchestra
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The growing presence of percussion and brass
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A marchlike figure gathering momentum
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Earlier musical ideas returning in altered forms
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A conclusion that feels powerful without becoming uncomplicated
Duration: 10'
George Gershwin: An American in Paris
Gershwin arrived in Paris as an American composer fascinated by the city’s energy and sound. In An American in Paris, he imagined a visitor wandering through crowded streets, absorbing new sights and noises while retaining an unmistakably American musical identity.
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The opening music moves with the irregular rhythm of a city walk. Taxi horns enter the orchestra alongside strings, winds, brass and percussion. Jazz rhythms, blues-inflected melodies and bustling instrumental conversations create a world in continual motion.
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At the center, the atmosphere becomes more reflective. A blues melody suggests homesickness or loneliness before the city’s energy returns. The visitor has encountered Paris without ceasing to sound American.
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The piece closes both the concert and the 2027 season with exuberance—but its importance goes beyond its famous taxi horns. Gershwin demonstrates that an American orchestral voice can be cosmopolitan, popular, sophisticated and joyful at the same time.
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Listen for:
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The jaunty opening rhythm suggesting an energetic walk
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The four Parisian taxi horns
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Jazz rhythms moving through the orchestra
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The blues-inflected trumpet melody
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Sudden changes between crowded activity and reflective stillness
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Earlier themes returning as the journey reaches its exuberant conclusion
