Biography of Arthur Fiedler
Conductor
Arthur Fiedler (December
17, 1894 – July 10, 1979) was the long-time conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra,
a symphony orchestra that specializes in popular and light
classical music. With a combination of musicianship and
showmanship, he made the Pops one of the best-known orchestras
in the country. Some criticized him for watering down music,
particularly when adapting popular songs or edited portions of
the classical repertoire, but Fiedler deliberately kept
performances informal, light, and often self-mocking to attract
more listeners.
Fiedler was born in Boston,
Massachusetts. His father was an Austrian-born violinist who
played in the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and his mother was a
pianist and musician. He grew up in Boston, and attended Boston
Latin School until his father retired and returned to Austria,
where he studied and worked until returning to Boston at the
start of World War I.
In 1909, his
father took him to Berlin to study violin with Willy Hess, and
then 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, Fiedler formed the Boston
Sinfonietta, a chamber music orchestra made up of Boston
Symphony members, and started a series of free outdoor concerts.
He was appointed the eighteenth conductor of the Boston Pops
in 1930. While the position of conductor of the Pops both prior
to and after Fiedler tended to be a segment of a conductor's
career, Fiedler made the Pops his life's work, holding the
position for a half-century.
Under Fiedler's direction,
the Boston Pops reportedly made more recordings than any other
orchestra in the world, most of them for RCA Victor, with total
sales of albums, singles, tapes, and cassettes exceeding $50
million. His recordings began in July 1935 at Boston's Symphony
Hall with RCA, including a world premiere recording of Jacob
Gade's Jalousie, which eventually sold over a million copies,
and the first complete recording of Rhapsody in Blue by George
Gershwin (with Jesús Maria Sanromá as soloist). In 1946, he
conducted the Boston Pops in one of the first American
recordings devoted to excerpts from a film score, Dmitri
Tiomkin's lush music for the David O. Selznick Technicolor epic
Duel in the Sun; RCA Victor released an album of ten-inch 78-rpm
discs complete with photographs from the film.
Fiedler's
June 20, 1947, recording of Gaîté Parisienne by Jacques
Offenbach was eventually released by RCA as their very first
long-playing classical album (RCA Victor LM-1001), in 1950. He
recorded the same music in 1954 in stereo and began making
regular stereo recordings in 1956. A number of Fiedler's
recordings were released as 45-rpm "extended play" discs,
beginning in 1949, such as Tchaikovsky's Marche Slave and
Ketèlbey's In a Persian Market (RCA Victor ERA-2). Besides
recording light classics, Fiedler also recorded music from
Broadway shows and Hollywood film scores, as well as
arrangements of popular music, especially the Beatles. He and
the Boston Pops occasionally recorded classical works that were
favorites, but not considered as "light" as most of the pieces
that he conducted. He made but a single recording with the
Boston Symphony Orchestra: Dvorak's New World Symphony. There
were also recordings of chamber music by his Sinfonietta.
Fiedler and the Pops recorded exclusively for RCA Victor until
the late 1960s, when they switched to Deutsche Grammophon for
classical releases with co-owned Polydor Records for his
arrangements of pop music compositions and then London Records.
His last album, devoted to disco, was titled Saturday Night
Fiedler.
Fiedler was also associated with the San
Francisco Pops Orchestra for 26 summers (beginning in 1949), and
conducted many other orchestras throughout the world.
Fiedler had many different hobbies. He was fascinated by the
work of firefighters and would travel in his own vehicle to
large fires in and around Boston at any time of the day or night
to watch the firefighters at work. He was even made an "Honorary
Captain" in the Boston Fire Department. A number of other fire
departments gave him honorary fire helmets and/or badges. The
official biography of Fiedler reports that the conductor once
helped in the rescue efforts at the tragic Cocoanut Grove fire
in Boston in 1942. An avid sailor, he volunteered during the
early days of World War II for the Temporary Reserve of the U.S.
Coast Guard and was later a member of the Coast Guard Auxiliary.
Fiedler conducted at the
nationally-televised opening ceremonies of Walt Disney World in
1971. He also appeared on numerous telecasts on Evening at Pops,
carried on PBS stations nationwide.
In honor of Fiedler's
vast influence on American music, on October 23, 1976 he was
awarded the prestigious University of Pennsylvania Glee Club
Award of Merit[3]. Beginning in 1964, this award "established to
bring a declaration of appreciation to an individual each year
that has made a significant contribution to the world of music
and helped to create a climate in which our talents may find
valid expression."
On January 10, 1977, Fiedler was
presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President
Gerald Ford.
Fiedler died in Brookline, Massachusetts, at
the age of 84 on July 10, 1979. He had been in failing health
for some time and had suffered a heart attack after a
performance on May 5, 1979. At the time of his death, he was in
his 50th year as conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra. After
his death, Boston honored him with a stylized sculpture, an
oversized bust of Fiedler, near the Charles River Esplanade, and
named a footbridge over Storrow Drive after him. This area is
home of the free concert series that continues through the
present day. John Williams took the post for the following year.