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7 Side-1 Band 1 Sullivan .. The Mikado: Overture Band 2 : Kreisler Liebesleid

Band 3 -Johann Strauss, Jr. Tales from the | Vienna Woods. Band 4 Chopin Les Sylphides (Excerpt):

(Orchestrated by Anderson and Bodge) f

Side 2 Band 1 Falla The Three-Cornered Hat

Ballet Suite

Band 2 Waldteufel Estudiantina Waltz Band 3 Tchaikovsky Marche Slave, Op. 31

With Arthur Fiedler to make the introductions, getting friendly with music becomes a simple matter. Mr. Fiedler is a specialist in such amenities. He has made friends for music — has helped music make friends for itself — for over thirty years, both as conductor of his own Sinfonietta (founded in 1925) and as director of the venerable Boston Pops (which he took over in 1930). The Pops concerts in Symphony Hall and the celebrated outdoor programs in the Esplanade Shell are local institutions to which Mr. Fiedler has given inter- national standing. Grateful Bostonians have named a bridge in his honor; such a monument is eminently fitting for a man who has, in a very real sense, bridged the gap between so-called “serious” and “light” music. ;

To reconcile the warring factions, Mr. Fiedler has arranged his Pops programs so as to make the pop-advocates see the light of the classics, and to show the long-hairs the delights of less pretentious styles. His performances radiate a buoyant good will that permits no musical class-distinctions — for the Pops there are many mansions, with ample room to accommodate both Mozart and Rodgers, both Jalousie and The Three-Cornered Hat. :

In this wide-ranging generosity of taste he resembles other im- portant musicians who have gone before. Sir Arthur Sullivan, for one, could conduct the London Philharmonic, compose cantatas and grand opera, and bear the dignities of knighthood — while also creat- ing some of the world’s most popular operettas. Sir Arthur saw “music bound up in daily life, and a necessity for existence” — what better argument for the present recording? From the cradle-song to the dirge, he added, “music marks periods and epochs in our lite, stimulates our exertions, strengthens our faith, speaks of peace and war, and exercises over us a charm and indefinite power which we can all feel, though we cannot explain.” These, in a nutshell, are a staunch Victorian’s reasons for wanting to be on a friendly footing with music; certainly they still apply in our day, when Sullivan’s Overture to The Mikado remains a perennial favorite.

Fritz Kreisler’s versatility also brought rewards in many dif- ferent provinces of music. Known above all as one of the great violin virtuosi of the twentieth century, Kreisler has composed

LM-1995 TMKS ® © Radio Corporation of America Sp Marcas Registradas

LM-1995

GETTING FRIENDLY Wt Mio

Boston Pops Orchestra

Arthur Fiedler, Conductor

operettas and pieces in the classical style, as well as such works as the Liebesleid, very Viennese in line and spirit, that are warm tributes to the city of his birth. Johann Strauss, Jr., had been there before him, when all Vienna moved, breathed and pulsed in three-quarter time. In the years of his reign as The Waltz King, even so severely “serious” a composer as Hector Berlioz could “pass whole nights watching thousands of incomparable dancers whirling about” as Strauss led the band. It was Strauss who painted the Danube blue in his incomparable waltz (scientific studies have determined that the river runs alternately gray, green, brown and yellow, but this goes unnoticed by anyone who knows the waltz). Emil Waldteufel, the Alsatian who wrote the brilliant Estudiantina Waltz, was Strauss’ French counterpart; he directed the music for Empress Eugénie’s glittering balls during the Second Empire.

In the ballet world, Les Sylphides is called a révérie romantique. Moonlight is the essential ingredient of this dance-poem, and Chopin’s music is the material from which it is fashioned. Pianists have played these melodies, ballerinas have danced to them and Tin Pan Alley has taken them to its heart — another instance of music’s friendly way of being many things to many people. The Three-Cornered Hat, Manuel de Falla’s fiery ballet, draws its rhythmic power from the humblest sources, from the peasant dances of the Aragon hills and the street songs of Castile. Falla rarely “borrowed” a tune from folk- lore, but his themes are nonetheless rooted in the Spanish soil, just as Tchaikovsky’s Marche Slave echoes the songs heard in the wheat fields of Russia and the mountains of Serbia. What Tchaikovsky experienced when he wrote such music can also be felt on hearing it: “One forgets everything else, the spirit trembles in sweet excite- ment, and time flies by before you know it.” FRED GRUNFELD

© by Radio Corporation of America, 1956

THIS IS AN RCA VICTOR “New Orthophonic” High Fidelity Recording It is distinguished by these characteristics:

1. Complete frequency range. 2. Ideal dynamic range plus clarity and brilliance. 3. Constant fidelity from outside to inside of record. 4. Improved quiet surfaces.

Printed in U.S.A.

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