Broadway Revisited
(6/9/09: 09-24; June 13, 2009

The Boston Pops medleys.

Gypsy overture-- 1; fades under)

Hi, this is Art Hilgart and this is Broadway Revisited, a weekly exploration of the songs and shows, composers and lyricists, and performers who created the American musical theater.

(Music up, then fade)

1. Seventy-Six Trombones 2:58

That recording of Seventy-Six Trombones, from Meredith Willson's The Music Man is the overture to today's program: Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops on Broadway. In his fifty years of conducting the Pops, Fiedler commissioned many medleys of Broadway shows. Here's the Pops version of The Fantasticks, arranged by Richard Hayman.

2. The Fantasticks - Medley 9:20

That was the Boston Pops medley of the songs from The Fantasticks, the long running show by Harvey Schmidt and Tom Jones.

The Pops was formed by the Boston Symphony in 1885, to provide summer concerts for music lovers and summer jobs for the symphony musicians. Arthur Fiedler, a Boston-born violinist in the orchestra, became the first permanent Pops conductor in 1930, and he held the job for half a century, until his death at age 84, in 1979. His concerts featured light classics like Rossini overtures, a long concerto or symphony, and "extras"-- original compositions like Leroy Anderson's Syncopated Clock and Broadway medleys like Richard Hayman's arrangement of the Sherman brothers' songs from Mary Poppins.

3. Mary Poppins - Medley 9:08

Arthur Fiedler recorded that medley from Mary Poppins before the movie had become a Broadway show. Richard Hayman also arranged the songs from The Man Of La Mancha.

4. Man Of La Mancha - Medley 8:51

Mitch Leigh and Joe Darion wrote the words and music for The Man Of La Mancha. Richard Hayman also arranged this medley of Galt MacDermot's music for Hair.

5. Hair - Medley 13:32

Galt MacDermot wrtoe the music for Hair-- Gerome Ragni and James Rado wrote the lyrics.

Under Arthur Fiedler's direction, Boston Pops concerts were on radio for decades, and later they were often broadcast on PBS television.

Fiedler and the Pops recorded hundreds of records for RCA Victor, from the 78 rpm era to that of long play vinyl and stereo tape, and they sold millions of copies. The Pops are the most recorded of all the world's symphony orchestras. In the late sixties, the Boston Symphony, Arthur Fiedler, and the Pops switched to Deutsche Grammophon, the source of today's recordings. They were taped in stereo and like all the Victor records, with the fine acoustics of Boston's Symphony Hall.

We'll end this sampling of the Boston Pops' Broadway with Jack Mason's setting of Fiddler on the Roof, by Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick.

6. Fiddler On The Roof - Medley 10:29

(Gypsy overture-- 2; to end)

Join us again next week for another Broadway Revisited. National distribution is funded by the Irving S. Gilmore Foundation in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and it's produced with the assistance of Martin Klemm, in the WMUK studios of Western Michigan University. Our website with playlists, program schedules, and stuff is broadwayrevisited.com, and our e-mail address is Art@broadwayrevisited.com. And I'm Art Hilgart.

Total music: 54:18; Estimated talking:3:30; Intro/outro: :30; Estimated total: 58:18.

Promo (7): That's the Boston Pops version of a song from Mary Poppins. This week we'll hear medleys from that show and four others when Broadway Revisited revisits Arthur Fiedler's Broadway.