Friday, October 22, 2010

Fanfare

Here's another favorite piece of music (though not the favorite): "Fanfare for the Common Man" by Aaron Copland. It's just the perfect expression of the spirit of the brass instruments. However, I have to admit that the title biases me in its favor. "Fanfare" expresses the nobility of each individual, the claim that everyone has something glorious about them. The Bible explains this by saying that human beings are created in the image of God. Of course, the Bible also claims that we are fallen, but this does not remove God's image from us. As Pascal put it, "What a Chimera is man! What a novelty, a monster, a chaos, a contradiction, a prodigy! Judge of all things, an imbecile worm; depository of truth, and sewer of error and doubt; the glory and refuse of the universe." "Fanfare for the Common Man" expresses the first half of this, the nobility, the glory of humanity. For the second half, you'll have to listen to Schoenberg.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

No, thanks. If I want to wander the moonlit vale of madness, I'll go looking for some recreational fungi!