BSO ends classical concerts on Esplanade
Without any formal announcement, the Boston Symphony Orchestra has abandoned a proud tradition of 73 years of free concerts of classical music played by the Boston Pops on the Esplanade. Over the last couple of decades, the classical Esplanade Concerts, created independently by Arthur Fiedler the year before he was named Pops conductor in 1930, have been increasingly overshadowed by the Fourth of July Pops extravaganza with fireworks.
For decades, there were at least two weeks and sometimes up to a month of varied free programs on the Esplanade, but the number has been sharply reduced in recent years, although since Fiedler's death in 1979 there has usually been a Fiedler Memorial Concert, often conducted, until his own recent death, by Harry Ellis Dickson. Last year there was one concert in addition to the Independence Day event and the preparatory "dress rehearsal" concert the night before. This year there will be none, apart from those on July 3 and 4.
BSO managing director Mark Volpe said he hopes to resurrect the concerts in the future, either on the Esplanade or at some other outdoor venue, if funding can be found.
"This was a difficult decision," he said earlier this week. "Many of our peer orchestras are experiencing severe financial problems. We have maintained our equilibrium, but it has required some tough decisions, and this was one of them.
"The cost of producing a concert on the Esplanade is about $100,000 -- about $70,000 for the musicians and another $30,000 for lights, sound, and security. We made some pitches to potential donors, but we did not succeed.
"In other cities, like New York," Volpe continued, "there is a degree of support from the public sector that we have never enjoyed. When the New York Philharmonic plays in a park, they have money from the city and from the state. Even before our state arts grant was cut by 60 percent, we already ranked last among major American orchestras in terms of state support."
Fiedler's daughter and biographer, Johanna Fiedler, heard the news yesterday.
"I am heartbroken," she said. "These free concerts of classical music on the Esplanade -- they were not Pops concerts -- were a really bold experiment. This vision of my father's is too important to die. My faith in the BSO is that it will find a way to keep his legacy going."
Last year's Fiedler Memorial Concert on the Esplanade on July 5 attracted fewer than 2,000 people, according to Volpe, as opposed to an estimated 700,000 the night before.
Fiedler and Boston businessman David G. Mugar created the Fourth of July celebration in 1974 as a way of directing renewed attention to the entire series of Esplanade concerts, but that concert gradually swallowed up everything surrounding it. "Anything around the Fourth just gets buried," Volpe said.
The BSO does not want to give up on the tradition, he added.
"We had a great success with Keith Lockhart in a concert in Franklin Park a couple of years ago," Volpe said, "and we have had conversations about going back there. We should have at least one high-profile concert for an underserved population each year. While I have profound respect for our tradition, if I had my druthers and a donor, I would want to go somewhere other than the Esplanade."
Fiedler's populist vision of free concerts of classical music for audiences who might otherwise never hear it was very advanced for its time, and it had far-reaching consequences. Leonard Bernstein's first exposure to live concert music came on the Esplanade, where he heard Fiedler conduct Wagner's overture to "Die Meistersinger" and decided that he wanted to be a conductor.
Over the years there have been corporate sponsors for the non-holiday Esplanade concerts, but according to Volpe, there has been none since 2001; the 2001 sponsor, Genuity, has been absorbed into a larger corporation. Since then, the BSO has been supporting the programs out of what Volpe calls "an income strand" from the organization's endowment.
