Mr. Pops

Arthur Fiedler (1894-1979)

He brought serious music to millions of Americans. A snowy-haired, white-mustachioed figure, he would walk briskly onstage and lead his Boston Pops Orchestra in a program of show tunes and classics. His philosophy was simple and insouciant: "My aim has been to give audiences a good time. I'd have trained seals if people wanted them." That was one of Fiedler's exaggerations, though he was not above appearing on a record jacket dressed as Santa Claus or as a jaunty Yankee Doodle dandy. Such clowning caused some highbrows to sneer. But to Boston audiences and those he visited around the country, Arthur Fiedler was Mr. Pops, the maestro of the masses.

Fiedler's conducting was straightforward and businesslike, a matter of careful reading of a score rather than impassioned urgency. Says Assistant Pops Conductor Harry Ellis Dickson: "He was a very unsentimental sort of guy, and it showed in the music." Yet Fiedler made himself into a national phenomenon. The best-known "serious" musician in America, he was also the bestselling classical artist of all time (over 50 million records). His "Evening at Pops" programs were consistently among the top-rated PBS shows, and one of the high points of America's Bicentennial was a thunderous performance of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture, conducted by an exuberant Fiedler before 400,000 wildly cheering enthusiasts.

Fiedler seemed destined to be a musician. His grandsires were musicians in Europe (Fiedler is German for fiddler), and his father, two uncles and a first cousin were all members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Fiedler joined the orchestra in 1915 as a violinist. Eager to conduct, the suave young maestro founded a series of free outdoor Esplanade concerts that are now a Boston tradition. In 1930 he was named conductor of the Boston Pops, the symphony's spring series, and proudly held that position for half a century.

Gradually the Fiedler formula evolved: lilting semiclassics, what he called gumdrops, or popular tunes, and some serious music: Stravinsky, Handel, concertos. The idea spread to other symphonies, but Fiedler's popularity was patented. Critics called his concerts "the classiest jukebox in the world." Retorted Fiedler: "A Strauss waltz is as good a thing of its kind as a Beethoven symphony. It's nice to eat a good hunk of beef but you want a light dessert too. That's what the Pops is." He had an uncanny ability to gauge the tastes of the times. He orchestrated the Beatles' sound before public taste canonized the group.

Fiedler would not tolerate substandard playing. Once, to punish his musicians for an unruly session, he made them rehearse a three-minute mambo for 70 minutes. Well into his 80s, even after several heart attacks, he continued to lead the orchestra. "If I retired, I'd just be hanging around waiting to go to the dentist or doctor or undertaker," he said. Toward the end, the proud old man would shuffle unsteadily to the podium. But then, invigorated by the music, he seemed to shed 20 years. When Fiedler died last week, Boston lost one of its best-known monuments.

"I am cursed that wherever I'm engaged they want a program like the Pops," Fiedler once said. "But every clown wants to play Hamlet." He never did play Hamlet, but he was a peerless Puck.

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