3 Minutes of Awesome! A great brass fanfare...

We start the new week with one of the truly great brass fanfares, right up there with Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man, the Fanfare pour précéder La Péri by French composer Paul Dukas (1865-1935). He's probably best known for his tone poem, The Sorcerer's Apprentice, because it was used in Disney's Fantasia when Mickey Mouse donned the wizard's hat and quickly found himself overrun by sentient broomsticks.

La Peri is a short ballet written in 1912 that was not staged until the 1930s in London. The fanfare is performed much more often; in fact, the DHS Wind Ensemble has played a band transcription of the work from time to time. It is full of Dukas' modern, yet tonal, harmonies that make his music sound so sparkling and appealing. Here is the world-famous University of Illinois Wind Symphony, directed by Robert Rumbelow, performing the work live in 2012:

As always, I'll share a Spotify link as well. The performing ensemble is the Orchestre National de Lille, a French orchestra from the north of the country, near the border with Belgium.