100 Fiedler Favorites
Perhaps I should start by admitting a bias: Many years ago, lying on Boston's grassy Esplanade by the Charles River on warm summer nights, I learned what a symphony orchestra should sound like, with Arthur Fiedler conducting the Boston Pops Orchestra. Those concerts were free; these seven compact discs are not--not quite. But for any lover of light classical music, they are certainly one of the best buys available. The orchestra (essentially the Boston Symphony) is one of the world's greatest; the music, fromSmoke Gets in Your Eyesto theGoyescas IntermezzoandRide of the Valkyriesis instantly enjoyable and permanently valuable; the conductor is at the same time genial and exacting, convinced that any music you play, no matter how frivolous, deserves the best you can give it.--Joe McLellan