Today, I want to recognize the birthday of a man who is synonymous with holiday music and my childhood. He stood on the podium and conducted many of the holiday songs that played on the radio and over the mall PA systems every year.
Today would be the 130th birthday of Arthur Fiedler, the man who made the Boston Pops Orchestra known throughout the country. He took the helm of the BPO in 1930 (He was the 19th conductor) and held that position for 50 years.
Believe it or not, under the direction of Fiedler, they say the Boston Pops Orchestra recorded more than any other orchestra in the world! They recorded most of their material for RCA Victor and had sales of over $50 million!
The first recording was done in Boston Symphony Hall in 1935. Recordings included the first complete recording of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, the music of Leroy Anderson, Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, Bach, and even the Beatles!
Fiedler and the Pops recorded three Christmas albums. Today, you can probably find all three in one CD collection. As I said earlier, many of those songs are familiar to people just because they played in stores during the holidays. The ones that stick out to me are:
Santa Claus is Coming to Town
Rudolph, The Red Nosed Reindeer
…and Sleigh Ride
Those are just three songs that are instantly recognizable as Fiedler and the Pops for me. Sleigh Ride was a piece composed by Leroy Anderson. It is another Anderson piece I want to spotlight today.
As a senior in high school, I had the opportunity to play A Christmas Festival by Leroy Anderson. The version we played was arranged for band instead of orchestra. It was a thrill for me, as I had loved the song long before we played it.
We had one of the Boston Pops Christmas albums and I would listen to it with headphones on. (Now, I will embarrass myself) I used to “conduct” A Christmas Festival with a stick in my room. That piece really stuck out to me.
I found out that in 1950 Arthur Fiedler asked Leroy Anderson to write a special concert piece for a Christmas recording he and the Pops were doing. Anderson chose eight popular Christmas Carols and Jingle Bells and created an amazing Christmas overture.
See if you can name them all…
Happy birthday, Arthur Fiedler!!
Various Ramblings of a Nostalgic Italian 
certainly a well-known name, probably the most famous conductor in the world I’d guess. My dad seemed to like his music when I was young. Seems like he used to appear on PBS a lot didn’t he, with live Pops concerts?
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Oh, I am sure that he did
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