Pop Goes the Orchestra-Part IV

Today's blog continues the bio of Leroy Anderson, whose music will be featured on the January 10, 2011 concert of Orchestra Kentucky.

In 1942 Leroy Anderson joined the U.S. Army, and was assigned to Iceland as a translator and interpreter. Later in 1945 he was assigned to the Pentagon as Chief of the Scandinavian Desk of Military Intelligence. But his duties did not prevent him from composing, and in 1945 he wrote The Syncopated Clock.

Anderson had been invited by Arthur Fiedler to guest-conduct the Boston Popular ("Pops") Orchestra during their annual Harvard Night. Anderson wanted to introduce a new work to Fiedler and composed a song about a clock with a syncopated rhythm. The idea of the title reportedly occurred to him before he wrote the music. In a few hours he wrote the music, scored it for orchestra and then mailed it to Symphony Hall in Boston. Fiedler had the orchestra parts copied from the score. Then, with a 3-day pass, Anderson traveled from his home in Arlington, Virginia to Boston where he conducted the premiere on May 28, 1945. Anderson recorded the work for Decca Records during 1950 with the best musicians selected from various New York orchestras. This was true for all of his recordings for Decca, collected as "Leroy Anderson and his Orchestra." Anderson's "orchestra" was an assemblage of musicians hired by Decca specially for Anderson's recordings.

The album entered the charts on March 23, 1951 and spent 14 weeks there, maximizing at number twelve, while a version credited to the Boston Popular Orchestra itself (released by RCA Victor Records) entered on June 1, 1951, spent 2 weeks on the charts, and maximized as number 28.

When The Syncopated Clock was recorded during 1950, it was noticed by the producers of a new WCBS-TV program called the Late Show, a nightly program with a format of old movies that was to be the station's first venture into late night television. The piece was chosen as the theme music for the Late Show and that helped publicize Anderson's music. The Syncopated Clock was used by the show for the next 25 years, and became a piece that many Americans could readily hum or whistle, even if few would have known the name of its composer.

http://www.wikipedia.com/

Watch the opening of the Late Show, featuring a short excertps of Anderson's The Syncopated Clock.