Bernstein and the Pops

Synopsis

Today marks the birthday of a much-loved American musical tradition: the Boston “Pops.” On July 11, 1885, the “Promenade” Orchestra (later dubbed the “Pops”) gave its first concert at Boston’s old Music Hall. The German conductor Adolf Neuendorff led a program that included Franz von Suppé’s “Morning, Noon and Night in Vienna” Overture, and Johann Strauss’s “Pizzicato Polka,” among other selections.

Henry Lee Higginson, the founder of the Boston Symphony, had proposed this new series in the hopes of re-creating the ambience of summer evenings in the concert gardens in Vienna, where he had been a music student. He also hoped to provide summer employment for the members of the Boston Symphony, who at that point had to search for other work six months out of the year.

By 1929, the American-born conductor Arthur Fiedler had started the first outdoor “Esplanade Concerts” in Boston, and the following year assumed the post of Pops director, a position he would hold until his death in July of 1979.

And we should note that it was also on today’s date in 1940 that a 22-year-old musician named Leonard Bernstein made his first appearance as conductor of a professional orchestra, leading the Boston Pops at an open-air Esplanade Concert.

Music Played in Today's Program

Leonard Bernstein (1918 – 1990) Divertimento for Orchestra Boston Pops; John Williams, cond. Philips 416 360

On This Day

Births

• 1836 - Brazilian opera composer Antonio Carlo Gomes, in Campinas

Deaths

• 1937 - American composer George Gershwin, age 38, in Hollywood, following an operation on a cystic brain tumor

Premieres

• 1882 - MacDowell: "Modern Suite" No. 1 for Piano, in Zurich, with composer as soloist

• 1921 - Gershwin: musical revue, "George White's Scandals of 1921," at the Liberty Theater in New York City

• 1996 - James MacMillan: "The World's Ransoming" (English horn Concerto), at the Barbican in London, by soloist Christine Pendrill with the London Symphony, Kent Nagano conducting

• 2003 - Peter Maxwell Davies: "Naxos Quartet" No. 2, at the Pittville Pump Room, Cheltenham (UK), as part of the Cheltenham International Festival by the Maggini Quartet;

Others

• 1798 - In the nation's capital of Philadelphia, President John Adams signed an Act of Congress establishing the United States Marine Band (The original "32 drummers and fifers" assisted in recruiting and entertained residents)

• 1885 - First concert of the Boston "Promenade" Orchestra (later dubbed the Boston "Pops") at the old Music Hall in Boston; Adolf Neuendorff conducts;

• 1922 - Opening concert of the Hollywood Bowl, with German conductor Alfred Hertz at the podium

• 1940 - Leonard Bernstein's first appearance as conductor of a professional orchestra, leading a performance of Wagner's Act I Prelude to "Die Meistersinger" with the Boston Pops at an open-air Esplanade Concert

• 1998 - "The President's Own" U.S. Marine Band, America's oldest professional musical organization, marks its 200th anniversary