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About this Piece

The Liberty Fanfare was composed in 1986 to commemorate the rededication and 100th Anniversary of the Statue of Liberty. The fanfare shares many of the qualities of Williams' other music of the mid-'80s, such as his animated Fanfare and Theme for the Los Angeles Summer Olympics, The Mission Theme still used on The NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw, and his lesser-known music for the film Space Camp. The bright, staunchly consonant, trumpet flourishes, which in more recent Williams music have given way to more dissonant, complex harmonies, are very much in evidence. As in many of Williams' fanfares, an opening celebratory motive is presented, followed by a quieter, more pensive theme for strings. Wood-winds delicately re-introduce the opening fanfare motive that soon ushers in a rousing conclusion in a kind of celebratory fantasia on the opening motive.

Christopher Anderson-Bazzoli