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Liberty
A Tribute to the sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi
Composed on commission by L’Orchestre d’Harmonie de la Ville de Belfort (F) 2010
Liberté was composed for the official inauguration of the sculpture Le Lion de Belfort: an enormous lion carved from red sandstone that defines the landscape of the French city of Belfort. The premiere of the composition took place on 28 November 2010, marking the occasion of the inauguration, exactly 130 years after the statue was completed by the French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi (1834–1904).
The work consists of three movements. The first movement depicts Bartholdi’s most famous statue: the 93-meter-high Statue of Liberty in New York. This statue was erected in 1886 as a gift from France to the United States, symbolizing the mutual friendship between the two nations. The themes in this movement are distinctly based on the opening notes of both the French national anthem (La Marseillaise) and the American national anthem (The Star-Spangled Banner).
The second movement portrays the four sculpted trumpet-playing angels that Bartholdi created in 1876 for the corners of the tower of the Brattle Square Church in Boston, Massachusetts. The composer connects this movement to the United States by drawing inspiration from the Largo of Antonín Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9 in E Minor (From the New World).
The final movement is dedicated to the colossal sculpture Le Lion de Belfort. The 22-meter-long and 11-meter-high lion symbolizes the heroic French resistance during the Prussian siege of Belfort in 1870–1871.
| Composer: | Jan de Haan |
| Instrumentation: | Concert band |
| Genre: | Concertwork |
| Level: | 4 |
| Duration: | 14:30 |
| Download score: | |
| Publisher: | De Haske Order this work |
