Symphony No. 3
Aaron Copland

[1946]

Just when Copland was mastering his distinctly American sound, the nation was pulled into World War II, and he was primed to meet the moment. In 1942, he wrote two works for the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra that became patriotic emblems: Lincoln Portrait, with narration featuring the words of Abraham Lincoln, and Fanfare for the Common Man, which honored the contributions of everyday Americans in a solemn and plain-spoken musical language.

The country was still at war in 1944 when Serge Koussevitzky, the music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, asked Copland for a symphony. As the composer later wrote, “I knew exactly the kind of music [Koussevitzky] enjoyed conducting and the sentiments he brought to it, and I knew the sound of his orchestra, so I had every reason to do my darndest to write a symphony in the grand manner.” He mapped out the massive score in several spurts over the course of two years, finally completing it in 1946 in time for a premiere that fall.

The Third Symphony starts with a melody of descending intervals spelled out in quiet octaves. When the low woodwinds and horns answer with a pair of luminous chords, the ascending perfect fifth in the upper horn line (the same leap that begins “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”) provides the first taste of the defining interval that resounds throughout the symphony. The movement arches into more lively material before closing with a subdued and disarming meditation on the introductory music.

The Allegro molto second movement functions as the symphony’s scherzo. Following fanfare-like volleys from the brass, the music continues in a spry vein characterized by figures marked “dry” and “perky.” The slow movement counters with austere lines that accumulate into saturated layers of harmony. There is a bouncy, dance-like episode, and more of the clean simplicity of perfect-fifth intervals, but the dark clouds linger into the unsettled triads of the final measures.

The finale, marked “Very deliberate,” emerges out of the last chord held by the lower strings. The entire movement is constructed around the iconic “Fanfare for the Common Man,” which, with its own prominent leaps of a perfect fifth, validates the symphony’s focus on that one triumphant interval.

Two piccolos, three flutes, three oboes, English horn, E-flat clarinet, two clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, four trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, two harps, piano, celesta, strings