Leroy Anderson

A Christmas Festival, Sleigh Ride, The Syncopated Clock, Blue Tango — Leroy Anderson wrote the short orchestral pieces that American orchestras reach for when they want wit rather than weight. Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts to Swedish parents, he read music at Harvard and went on to Scandinavian and Germanic languages there, a training the army put to use in military intelligence during the war. His association with Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops from 1936 gave the pieces their first performances and their permanent home. Blue Tango reached number one on the American charts in 1952, the first instrumental to do so. Fiddle-Faddle, Serenata, Bugler's Holiday and Forgotten Dreams came from the same workshop. Sleigh Ride was finished in 1948 and played that year by the Pops under Fiedler, with Mitchell Parish's words added in 1950. The family home in Woodbury, Connecticut is now a museum of his work.