Today, December 17, is the birthday of Arthur Fiedler who was the conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra from 1930 to 1979, almost fifty years! That's quite a run!
Fiedler was also associated with the San Francisco Pops Orchestra
for 26 summers (beginning in 1949).
He was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on December 17, 1894. His father was an Austrian violinist who played in the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and his mother was a pianist. When his father retired in 1910 they moved to Vienna, Austria. The family soon moved again, to Berlin, where from 1911 to 1915 young Fiedler studied violin at the Royal Academy of Music (Hochschule für Musik Berlin) under Willy Hess. He returned to Boston at the beginning of World War I. In 1915 he joined the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Karl Muck as a violinist. He also worked as a pianist, organist, and percussionist.
In 1924 he formed the Boston Sinfonietta, a chamber orchestra, made up of Boston Symphony Orchestra members, of which he was the conductor; its aim was to bring greater variety to the music heard both in Boston and throughout the surrounding areas. This group was also known on records as the Arthur Fiedler Sinfonietta. In an effort to bring as much music to the public as possible, Fiedler initiated a campaign for a series of free outdoor concerts in Boston and his efforts were rewarded in 1929 with the first Esplanade Concerts on the Charles River. These concerts programmed American and European light music and featured musicians from the Boston Symphony Orchestra: they were so successful that Fiedler was appointed the eighteenth conductor of the Boston Pops in 1930.
Fiedler was one of the most successful recording artists of the twentieth century, with his recordings for RCA selling in excess of fifty million copies. He made his first recordings with the Boston Pops Orchestra in 1935, and together they continued to turn out best-selling records until his death: their account of the Jacob Gade song, Jealousy, was the first recording by a symphony orchestra to sell over one million copies.
Many albums were made for RCA as part of the company’s Living Stereo series, and their excellent technical qualities, combined with Fiedler’s unique style in this repertoire, have ensured that many of these recordings have remained in the catalogue. Fiedler’s discography (link below) with the Boston Pops is so vast and so stylish that it is difficult to highlight specific recordings above others. Nonetheless among the best are the coupling of Gaîté Parisienne by Offenbach with La Boutique Fantasque by Rossini; Classics for Children, which includes Petr and the Wolf by Prokofiev, and The Carnival of the Animals by Saint-Saëns; Fiedler on the Roof, a compilation of hits from several of the most successful major Broadway musicals; and Boston Tea Party which includes shorter pieces by composers as varied as Balfe, Nicolai and Vaughan Williams. A good example of Fiedler’s way with popular tunes may be heard in the album Peace, Love and Pops, a collection of some of the most popular songs of the 1960s and 1970s.
The musicians in the Pops Orchestra didn’t so much speak to Fiedler as bicker, according to his daughter Johanna, in her 1994 tell-all Arthur Fiedler, Papa, the Pops and Me (link below). Although the conductor who made the Boston Pops world famous seemed a cheery, red-cheeked Santa Claus in his last years before the public, here he behaves nastily to his family, to his underlings in the orchestra and to unsuspecting fans who get in his way. According to his daughter, he was a womanizing husband, a neglectful parent and a self-deceiving alcoholic.
Johanna Fiedler - 1994
She described the musicians, members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, as openly contemptuous of her father. They despised the light music he loved. They were incensed they had to sing “Yeah, yeah, yeah” when he programmed the Beatles song, I Want To Hold Your Hand. His signature piece, Stars and Stripes Forever, was one of their least favorites. Sometimes the musicians would toss their music in the air at the end of a piece they didn’t like. Fiedler would respond by tossing his score higher. The musicians would retaliate and the stage would be littered with sheet music. Fiedler hated what he viewed as the musicians’ elitism. “This damned snobbism is the thing I’ve been trying to fight all my life, every chance I get,” he once said.
He was associated with the San Francisco Pops Orchestra (1812 link below) for 26 summers (beginning in 1949), and conducted many other orchestras throughout the world. He was a featured conductor on several of NBC's The Standard Hour programs in 1950 and 1951, conducting the San Francisco Symphony in the War Memorial Opera House; the performances were preserved on transcription discs and later released on audio cassette.
I remember going to the Civic Center Auditorium (now called the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium) on Grove Street in San Francisco in the late fifties and early sixties to hear his "Pop" concerts (link below).
Among his many interests (which included coast guarding), Fiedler was a keen observer of fires, and on the occasion of his seventy-fifth birthday his son Peter presented him with a surprise gift on behalf of his whole family: a full-size fire engine! He was witness to the devastating Cocoanut Grove fire in Boston in 1942 (link below).
Arthur Fiedler died on July 10, 1979 after having been in failing health for some time. During the previous winter, he suffered a stroke that temporarily left him unable to speak, but he quickly recovered and in May conducted a concert to celebrate his 50th anniversary as conductor of the Pops. A few days later, he had a mild heart attack after another performance. He collapsed while studying music scores in his Brookline, Massachusetts home and suffered cardiac arrest. After his death, Boston named a footbridge over Storrow Drive after him and honored him with a stylized, oversized bust of him near the Charles River Esplanade.
This area is home of the free concert series that continues through the present day. Composer John Williams succeeded Fiedler as the orchestra's nineteenth director.
Viewfinder links:
Arthur Fiedler articles/mentions
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky ~ 1812 Overture
Tchaikovsky ~ 1812 Overture (Antal Dorati)
John Williams ~ A Soundtrack King
Net links:
Discography
PBS ~ Arthur Fiedler: Evening at the Pops
NY Times - You're the Pops ~ Arthur Fiedler Papa, the Pops and Me
YouTube links:
Arthur Fiedler & the Boston Pops
photographer unknown
He was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on December 17, 1894. His father was an Austrian violinist who played in the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and his mother was a pianist. When his father retired in 1910 they moved to Vienna, Austria. The family soon moved again, to Berlin, where from 1911 to 1915 young Fiedler studied violin at the Royal Academy of Music (Hochschule für Musik Berlin) under Willy Hess. He returned to Boston at the beginning of World War I. In 1915 he joined the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Karl Muck as a violinist. He also worked as a pianist, organist, and percussionist.
In 1924 he formed the Boston Sinfonietta, a chamber orchestra, made up of Boston Symphony Orchestra members, of which he was the conductor; its aim was to bring greater variety to the music heard both in Boston and throughout the surrounding areas. This group was also known on records as the Arthur Fiedler Sinfonietta. In an effort to bring as much music to the public as possible, Fiedler initiated a campaign for a series of free outdoor concerts in Boston and his efforts were rewarded in 1929 with the first Esplanade Concerts on the Charles River. These concerts programmed American and European light music and featured musicians from the Boston Symphony Orchestra: they were so successful that Fiedler was appointed the eighteenth conductor of the Boston Pops in 1930.
Fiedler was one of the most successful recording artists of the twentieth century, with his recordings for RCA selling in excess of fifty million copies. He made his first recordings with the Boston Pops Orchestra in 1935, and together they continued to turn out best-selling records until his death: their account of the Jacob Gade song, Jealousy, was the first recording by a symphony orchestra to sell over one million copies.
Many albums were made for RCA as part of the company’s Living Stereo series, and their excellent technical qualities, combined with Fiedler’s unique style in this repertoire, have ensured that many of these recordings have remained in the catalogue. Fiedler’s discography (link below) with the Boston Pops is so vast and so stylish that it is difficult to highlight specific recordings above others. Nonetheless among the best are the coupling of Gaîté Parisienne by Offenbach with La Boutique Fantasque by Rossini; Classics for Children, which includes Petr and the Wolf by Prokofiev, and The Carnival of the Animals by Saint-Saëns; Fiedler on the Roof, a compilation of hits from several of the most successful major Broadway musicals; and Boston Tea Party which includes shorter pieces by composers as varied as Balfe, Nicolai and Vaughan Williams. A good example of Fiedler’s way with popular tunes may be heard in the album Peace, Love and Pops, a collection of some of the most popular songs of the 1960s and 1970s.
The musicians in the Pops Orchestra didn’t so much speak to Fiedler as bicker, according to his daughter Johanna, in her 1994 tell-all Arthur Fiedler, Papa, the Pops and Me (link below). Although the conductor who made the Boston Pops world famous seemed a cheery, red-cheeked Santa Claus in his last years before the public, here he behaves nastily to his family, to his underlings in the orchestra and to unsuspecting fans who get in his way. According to his daughter, he was a womanizing husband, a neglectful parent and a self-deceiving alcoholic.
photo by Janet Knott/ Globe Staff
She described the musicians, members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, as openly contemptuous of her father. They despised the light music he loved. They were incensed they had to sing “Yeah, yeah, yeah” when he programmed the Beatles song, I Want To Hold Your Hand. His signature piece, Stars and Stripes Forever, was one of their least favorites. Sometimes the musicians would toss their music in the air at the end of a piece they didn’t like. Fiedler would respond by tossing his score higher. The musicians would retaliate and the stage would be littered with sheet music. Fiedler hated what he viewed as the musicians’ elitism. “This damned snobbism is the thing I’ve been trying to fight all my life, every chance I get,” he once said.
He was associated with the San Francisco Pops Orchestra (1812 link below) for 26 summers (beginning in 1949), and conducted many other orchestras throughout the world. He was a featured conductor on several of NBC's The Standard Hour programs in 1950 and 1951, conducting the San Francisco Symphony in the War Memorial Opera House; the performances were preserved on transcription discs and later released on audio cassette.
I remember going to the Civic Center Auditorium (now called the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium) on Grove Street in San Francisco in the late fifties and early sixties to hear his "Pop" concerts (link below).
Among his many interests (which included coast guarding), Fiedler was a keen observer of fires, and on the occasion of his seventy-fifth birthday his son Peter presented him with a surprise gift on behalf of his whole family: a full-size fire engine! He was witness to the devastating Cocoanut Grove fire in Boston in 1942 (link below).
Arthur Fiedler died on July 10, 1979 after having been in failing health for some time. During the previous winter, he suffered a stroke that temporarily left him unable to speak, but he quickly recovered and in May conducted a concert to celebrate his 50th anniversary as conductor of the Pops. A few days later, he had a mild heart attack after another performance. He collapsed while studying music scores in his Brookline, Massachusetts home and suffered cardiac arrest. After his death, Boston named a footbridge over Storrow Drive after him and honored him with a stylized, oversized bust of him near the Charles River Esplanade.
This area is home of the free concert series that continues through the present day. Composer John Williams succeeded Fiedler as the orchestra's nineteenth director.
Viewfinder links:
Arthur Fiedler articles/mentions
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky ~ 1812 Overture
Tchaikovsky ~ 1812 Overture (Antal Dorati)
John Williams ~ A Soundtrack King
Net links:
Discography
PBS ~ Arthur Fiedler: Evening at the Pops
NY Times - You're the Pops ~ Arthur Fiedler Papa, the Pops and Me
YouTube links:
Arthur Fiedler & the Boston Pops
date & photographer unknown
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