FIEDLER

by Robin Moore ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 12, 1968

Robin Moore should have held on to his Green Berets. Because this book about the popular leader of the Popular Concerts of the Boston Pops Orchestra is so much pomp and circumstance. Oddly, Mr. Fiedler could have been an exciting character. Born into a musical Austrian Jewish family, he grew up in both Boston and Vienna. He was a handsome prankster with a marvelous sense of humor that later supplemented the informal atmosphere of the Pops concerts. He was also ""the compleat bachelor"" numbering among his amours, the then vivacious, later tragic Jeanne Eagles. This tells how he inveigled his way to the podium and got through union wangles; was reinstated after being fired, instituted the country's first Free Concerts and managed to become the Ed Sullivan of the genre--something for the whole family in what became such an American Institution that Tokyo Rose used Fiedler and the Pops as her theme music. This is so crammed with incidentals, you can barely keep track of the score. Even the somewhat dramatic circumstances of Fiedler's final marriage (his very young wife's not-so-old mother was jealous) and his later heart seizures become lost in the trivia. For the loyal listeners. . . for the very patient fan.

Pub Date: Nov. 12, 1968

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1968

Categories: NONFICTION