BOSTON POPS

On Wednesday, May 15, our dear friends from Boston had a nice surprise for my wife and me. Like on May 13 had been my birthday, they decided to take us to the Boston Pops, that is a featured spring musical event for the Bostonians. It treats of a celebration that has been held for more than one hundred and twenty-five years with no interruption, in which the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) plays popular music in the Boston Symphony Hall (BSH). During the performance, the public may order for having something to eat and drink. They can sit at the tables which have been set instead of the habitual seat rows. The atmosphere is more informal and relaxed than when the orchestra plays classical music. The history of this event is briefly explained in the page 15 of the Week 2, 2013 Season Programs Magazine issue.

Affectionately known as “America’s Orchestra,” the Boston Pops is the most recorded, and arguably the most beloved orchestra in the country. (…)In 2010, with the 125^th anniversary season, the Boston Pops reached a landmark moment in a remarkable history that began with its founding in 1885. Four years earlier, in 1881, Civil War veteran Henry Lee Higginson founded the Boston Symphony Orchestra, calling its establishment “the dream of my life.” From the start he intended to present, in the warmer months, concerts of light classics and the popular music of the day. From a practical perspective, Higginson realized that this ‘lighter’ performance would provide year-round employment for the musicians. “The Promenade Concerts,” as they were originally called, were soon informally known as “Popular Concerts,” which eventually became shortened to “Pops,” the name officially adopted in 1900. The following year the orchestra performed for the first time in its new home, Symphony Hall. Not only is this performance space acoustically outstanding, it was also designed, at Higginson’s insistence, so that the rows of seats for Boston Symphony concerts could be replaced by tables and chairs for Pops concerts (…)

In all these years, the BSO has had seventeen conductors, being Arthur Fiedler the first American-born of them and also the longest conductor with about fifty years leading the orchestra. He introduced the Evening at Pops television series, “Bringing the orchestra into the living rooms of countless Americans.” The currently conductor is Keith Lockhart (1995-present), who has led more than 1,500 Boston Pops concerts. He has discovered a new way opening the performances to a wider, more varied public.

The Boston Pops has a particular motif each year. The motif for the 2013 edition has been the music for the movies, from the Hollywood’s Golden age to nowadays blockbusters. “This season, the Boston Pops celebrates what is probably this country’s most significant contribution to popular culture around the world ─the movies,” Lockhart said. The function started with a train of sequences done from tracks of films, which succeeded each other while the orchestra was playing the proper music. It was wonderful to listen to live music watching well-known pictures that ever have moved to smile or tears the most attendants in the theatre. Hollywood films have made more for the culture globalization than hundreds of speeches and political deals. Who has not laughed watching the Laurel & Hardy or Jerry Lewis pictures? Who has not suffered and cried seeing Gone with the wind or The Bridges of Madison County? Didn't you excite watching Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn in The African Queen? Since we all were children, we have been seeing films from Hollywood in English or translated into many languages. We share the same film culture ─taking naturally into account the correspondent national additions.

I should say two words about the site where the performance was going to be. You surely know what usually happens when two couples of friends chat while they walk in the street. The four elements recombine: one of the new pairs is formed for the men, and the other one for the women. I wonder if it may be a cultural universal. So when we were walking through the city, my friend Dave ─who is a really world-well-travelled man─ talked to me about the Symphony Hall, the building where the concert was going to take place. He referred to the age (about 130 years old) of the BSH, but he realized that it was almost new compared with many buildings in the older Europe: “for Europeans, anything in America would be extremely young or new,” he told. What wouldn’t be for Egyptians or more yet for Iraqis!!! We agreed that you cannot be confused between the age of the concrete people and the age of the civilization. Human beings are young or old in years; human civilization, in thousands of years; and human culture, in hundreds of thousands of them. There are neither churches nor universities dated before British arrival in New England. However, my descent is not older than David’s descent. Not just because the whole humanity comes arguably from Africa, but in the more restricted sense that American Culture is an overseas development of the European or Occidental culture, with any world cultural contributions you want to find in it. It is certain that we can see and hear people from all ethnic groups and hundreds of languages throughout the streets of the American cities. So happens in Boston. But immigrants and even native people, whose descents had been living here for centuries before the arriving of European people, have had to accustom to live in the Occidental style, and even giving up part of their traditions if they were impossible to combine with the current life. It is not a victory or a defeat, and it can seem fair or unfair; but that's just the development of human history.

Anyway, the BSH is a praiseworthy concert building, especially because of its acoustics. The sound of the music played by the BSO had actually a high quality, and the execution was quite perfect. We listened to the music whilst we followed the rhythms with our heads, hands and legs. After the introduction, three impressive vocalists ─Donna McKechnie, Jodi Benson, and Doug LaBrecque─ performed some of the Marvin Hamlisch’s most memorable tunes from both stage and screen. The performance was also a tribute to Mr. Hamlisch (1944-2012), a well-known and many times awarded composer for both Hollywood and Broadway. The vocalists sang the pieces and also played as actors. The public were indeed enthusiastic clapping and singing when it was possible. Being amongst the presents in a so relevant Boston social event was a great pleasure for us. We felt as if we were Bostonians as well. This was possible just thanks to our hosts’ kindness.

We enjoyed the evening. Thanks Ann and David one more time.