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JOHN WILLIAMS
Liberty Fanfare (1986)

Composer John Williams has scored the soundtrack to contemporary cinema, from terrifying swimmers in Jaws to creating heroic leitmotifs in the Superman, Indiana Jones, Star Wars, and Jurassic Park blockbusters. Nominated for 54 Academy Awards and winner of five, he is second only to Walt Disney as the most nominated person in Academy Awards history. Williams’s father was a member of the CBS Radio Orchestra, and the young future composer spent many Sunday evenings attending broadcasts of Your Hit Parade. He heard his first orchestra at age 10, quickly cultivating a fascination for brass and percussion.


Williams’s concert works include concertos for multiple instruments; more than 25 “fanfares and celebratory works,” including for several Olympic Games; and music for a stage musical based on the story of Thomas Becket and Henry II of England. As a conductor, Williams has a long and distinguished history with the Boston Pops Orchestra and continues to guest conduct ensembles worldwide, stating “These institutions are at the core of artistic life in many cities.”


The idea for a statue of La Liberté éclairant le monde (Liberty enlightening the world) originated with French author Édouard René de Laboulaye, who wished to honor the French/American alliance, the 100th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, and America’s abolition of slavery. Designed by French painter Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, the copper-sculpted classically robed woman evokes Libertas, the Roman goddess of Liberty. In her right hand she carries a torch symbolizing enlightenment and in her left a tabula ansata of law inscribed with the date July 4, 1776, in Roman numerals. At her feet, a broken chain and shackle represent freedom from tyranny and a crown of seven rays atop her head signifies the Earth’s seven seas and continents. On her pedestal is inscribed the sonnet “The New Colossus” by American poet Emma Lazarus; its message of refuge and opportunity have long been a beacon for travelers.


France initially agreed to fund the cost of the statue, raising funds through public fees, entertainment events, and a lottery. Financially responsible for the pedestal, the United States presented theatrical events, auctions, and prizefights; Lazarus wrote her now immortal poem for an art and literary auction. An exhibition of the right arm and torch at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia raised funds by charging visitors 50 cents to climb up through the arm to the torch. When fundraising bogged down, publisher Joseph Pulitzer placed an ad in the New York World, generating more than 120,000 donations to complete the pedestal. The statue was disassembled and shipped to New York in 1885 as 350 individual pieces packed in 214 crates.


The Statue of Liberty was dedicated by President Grover Cleveland on October 28, 1886, designated a national monument in 1924, and restored in the 1980s. In preparation for the 1986 centennial commemoration, the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation commissioned Williams to write a fanfare for a four-day celebration presided over by President Ronald Reagan and French President François Mitterrand. Williams conducted the Boston Pops Orchestra in a preview performance of Liberty Fanfare in June of that year, and again in a nationally televised concert on July 4 as part of “Liberty Weekend.”


Scored for full orchestra, including such unusual percussion effects as chimes and a ship’s bell, Liberty Fanfare is infused with a patriotic spirit through what Williams called “a group of American airs and tunes of my own invention.” Inspiration from Aaron Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man and the works of “March King” John Philip Sousa helped create what critics dubbed a “humdinger” of a military fanfare. 


An opening brass call to attention, intended as a possibly detachable front piece, projects majesty with flourishes and rapidly ornamented roulades. Lush strings provide spacious melodic lines in a reflective middle section, punctuated by brass and winds. These two musical ideas converge in a triumphant fantasia of rhythmic drive and rich orchestration to symphonically welcome all to the American experience. 


Devoted to the orchestra as an institution, Williams acknowledges “I can only put dots on a paper; it doesn’t become music until it’s interpreted by a great orchestra and has an audience to hear it. Then what’s written on the paper becomes music, becomes a communal act.” With no plans to stop composing, Williams states “I don’t know how you retire from music—it’s like breathing, eating, and functioning.” 

 

—Nancy Plum

JOHN WILLIAMS
Liberty Fanfare (1986)

Composer John Williams has scored the soundtrack to contemporary cinema, from terrifying swimmers in Jaws to creating heroic leitmotifs in the Superman, Indiana Jones, Star Wars, and Jurassic Park blockbusters. Nominated for 54 Academy Awards and winner of five, he is second only to Walt Disney as the most nominated person in Academy Awards history. Williams’s father was a member of the CBS Radio Orchestra, and the young future composer spent many Sunday evenings attending broadcasts of Your Hit Parade. He heard his first orchestra at age 10, quickly cultivating a fascination for brass and percussion.


Williams’s concert works include concertos for multiple instruments; more than 25 “fanfares and celebratory works,” including for several Olympic Games; and music for a stage musical based on the story of Thomas Becket and Henry II of England. As a conductor, Williams has a long and distinguished history with the Boston Pops Orchestra and continues to guest conduct ensembles worldwide, stating “These institutions are at the core of artistic life in many cities.”


The idea for a statue of La Liberté éclairant le monde (Liberty enlightening the world) originated with French author Édouard René de Laboulaye, who wished to honor the French/American alliance, the 100th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, and America’s abolition of slavery. Designed by French painter Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, the copper-sculpted classically robed woman evokes Libertas, the Roman goddess of Liberty. In her right hand she carries a torch symbolizing enlightenment and in her left a tabula ansata of law inscribed with the date July 4, 1776, in Roman numerals. At her feet, a broken chain and shackle represent freedom from tyranny and a crown of seven rays atop her head signifies the Earth’s seven seas and continents. On her pedestal is inscribed the sonnet “The New Colossus” by American poet Emma Lazarus; its message of refuge and opportunity have long been a beacon for travelers.


France initially agreed to fund the cost of the statue, raising funds through public fees, entertainment events, and a lottery. Financially responsible for the pedestal, the United States presented theatrical events, auctions, and prizefights; Lazarus wrote her now immortal poem for an art and literary auction. An exhibition of the right arm and torch at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia raised funds by charging visitors 50 cents to climb up through the arm to the torch. When fundraising bogged down, publisher Joseph Pulitzer placed an ad in the New York World, generating more than 120,000 donations to complete the pedestal. The statue was disassembled and shipped to New York in 1885 as 350 individual pieces packed in 214 crates.


The Statue of Liberty was dedicated by President Grover Cleveland on October 28, 1886, designated a national monument in 1924, and restored in the 1980s. In preparation for the 1986 centennial commemoration, the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation commissioned Williams to write a fanfare for a four-day celebration presided over by President Ronald Reagan and French President François Mitterrand. Williams conducted the Boston Pops Orchestra in a preview performance of Liberty Fanfare in June of that year, and again in a nationally televised concert on July 4 as part of “Liberty Weekend.”


Scored for full orchestra, including such unusual percussion effects as chimes and a ship’s bell, Liberty Fanfare is infused with a patriotic spirit through what Williams called “a group of American airs and tunes of my own invention.” Inspiration from Aaron Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man and the works of “March King” John Philip Sousa helped create what critics dubbed a “humdinger” of a military fanfare. 


An opening brass call to attention, intended as a possibly detachable front piece, projects majesty with flourishes and rapidly ornamented roulades. Lush strings provide spacious melodic lines in a reflective middle section, punctuated by brass and winds. These two musical ideas converge in a triumphant fantasia of rhythmic drive and rich orchestration to symphonically welcome all to the American experience. 


Devoted to the orchestra as an institution, Williams acknowledges “I can only put dots on a paper; it doesn’t become music until it’s interpreted by a great orchestra and has an audience to hear it. Then what’s written on the paper becomes music, becomes a communal act.” With no plans to stop composing, Williams states “I don’t know how you retire from music—it’s like breathing, eating, and functioning.” 

 

—Nancy Plum