Arthur Fiedler

Arthur Fiedler ranked as his period's foremost popular conductor and functioned as classical music's leading ambassador in the vein of Mozart, while ranking among the uncommon few whose discs generated genuine revenue streams for both the ensemble and its associated labels. He advanced symphonic repertoire across every social and financial divide by scheduling works that stretched from Pachelbel through Gershwin to the Beatles and the Bee Gees. Born December 17, 1894 in Boston, Massachusetts, Fiedler was the child of a Boston Symphony Orchestra violinist. At age fifteen he journeyed to Berlin for lessons with virtuoso Willy Hess, using the time to investigate chamber music and conducting while acquiring close familiarity with the Western European classical lineage. Back in the U.S. by 1915, he enlisted with the Boston Symphony as a violinist, yet his conducting aspirations led him to create the Arthur Fiedler Sinfonietta, a compact group drawn from other elite BSO performers.

Through the Sinfonietta, Fiedler launched his celebrated Esplanade Concerts beside the Charles River; these constituted the first American presentations of that format, blending classical and popular selections to reach the broadest possible listeners and eventually becoming a Boston institution that still attracts hundreds of thousands annually. Appointed conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra in 1930, the summer-season version of the Boston Symphony Orchestra that omitted its principal players, Fiedler steered the group further toward popular fare. He supplemented the existing waltzes, polkas, and light classics with show tunes and other selections originating outside the concert hall. The adjustment proved challenging because many musicians, rooted in European traditions, displayed condescension toward lighter music and especially American pieces. His daughter Johanna recalled that he reminded them there existed "no bad music, only boring music," sometimes traceable to performers who failed to engage, and that they performed in America for American audiences and therefore needed to adjust.

Fiedler occupied the Pops podium for fifty years and transformed the ensemble into one of the nation's most recognized orchestras. Unlike most contemporaries who viewed recording as a tiresome necessity, he welcomed the medium and harnessed it to introduce the Pops and its repertoire to millions who never visited Boston. An early milestone arrived in 1940 when the Sinfonietta issued the first recording of Johann Pachelbel's Canon in D, restoring to circulation a Baroque work that would rank among the era's best-known compositions. Contracted to RCA Victor alongside the Boston Symphony, the Pops became a reliable earner for both the parent orchestra and the label, prompting repeated sessions of the same repertoire as technology progressed. Fiedler's 1950 recording of Manuel Rosenthal's Offenbach pastiche Gaite Parisienne marked RCA Victor's inaugural long-playing release, followed by a stereo remake in 1954 well ahead of that format's standardization. The albums proved popular enough to serve as incentives in RCA Record Club print promotions.

The leap to multimedia occurred in 1970 when Evening at the Pops debuted on PBS, pairing the orchestra each week with a featured guest, typically a singer or instrumentalist. Fiedler's avuncular manner and humor suited programs that could range from the sublimely beautiful (Judy Collins) to the delightfully ridiculous (Prof. Peter Schickele, aka P.D.Q. Bach) and occasionally both simultaneously (the Muppets). He occasionally resembled a ringmaster more than a conductor yet achieved stardom in that capacity, earning national television profiles while in his seventies. By then the Pops, together with the Boston Symphony, had moved to Deutsche Grammophon. Fiedler maintained contact with current popular trends; in 1964 he already incorporated Lennon-McCartney songs into the repertory. His final album, Saturday Night Fiedler, appeared in 1979 and showed him on the cover attired like John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever. Though some traditionalists reacted with dismay, the record sold and may have introduced disco listeners to the Pops' approach. A key factor in his half-century of achievement lay in his consistent recruitment of skilled behind-the-scenes personnel; while the orchestra's caliber was assured, he also engaged gifted arrangers, notably Leroy Anderson, who later gained recognition as a composer of light classics. The Pops' treatments of show tunes, rock numbers, and even disco tracks remained engaging, consistently interesting, and at times revelatory. Overall he became probably the most recorded conductor and the Pops the most recorded orchestra of their era, with album sales exceeding 50 million.

Fiedler proved difficult to replace. At his death on July 10, 1979 the Pops had grown so central to the orchestra and to PBS that a successor with an existing audience was required. Composer/conductor John Williams, who had risen to prominence through scores for the films Jaws, Star Wars (and its sequels), and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, attaining recognition comparable to many movie stars, assumed the post in 1980.