Leroy Anderson

American classical composer

A master at light orchestral music, Anderson wrote sparkling arrangements and clever compositions for band and orchestra.

The Life

Leroy Anderson was born in 1908 to Swedish immigrant parents who came to the United States when they were children. His father, Bror Anton Anderson, was a postal clerk who played the mandolin. His mother, Anna Margareta Anderson, played the organ at the Swedish Church in Cambridge, and her son’s first musical training was on the organ. With these musical influences at home, Anderson was ready for piano lessons, which he began at the New England Conservatory of Music in 1919. He attended the Cambridge High and Latin School, graduating in 1925. For his graduation ceremonies, he orchestrated the school song, and he conducted the school’s orchestra in a rousing rendition of it. Anderson’s father bought his son a trombone while he was in high school, in hopes Anderson would earn a front-row seat in the Harvard Band.

Fulfilling his father’s wishes, Anderson did enter Harvard, playing both the trombone in the band and double bass in the orchestra, and singing with the Harvard Glee Club. He studied counterpoint with Edward Ballantine, who had been a student of pianist Artur Schnabel. Ballantine’s music was noted for its humorous quality, which had a major influence on Anderson. When he was a senior, Anderson became the conductor of the Harvard Band, and for it he arranged some traditional Harvard songs, along with tunes from other Ivy League colleges. These were so fresh and original that they laid the foundation for his career. His arrangements attracted the attention of Arthur Fiedler, the director of the Boston Pops Orchestra.

Anderson continued his education at Harvard, studying composition with Walter Piston, who also taught composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein. At the time, the United States was entering the Great Depression, and although Anderson had obtained a master’s degree in music, he doubted his ability to make a living in the field. With a great facility for languages, Anderson began his Ph.D. studies in German and the Scandinavian languages, hoping to make a living as a language teacher. Eventually he learned to speak Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic, German, French, Italian, and Portuguese.

In World War II Anderson was drafted into the U.S. Army, and the military took advantage of his linguistic ability. He was stationed in Iceland to serve as a translator and an interpreter. His excellent abilities prompted the U.S. government to offer him the job of U.S. attaché to Sweden after the war. Anderson declined the position, although he was sent to Washington, D.C., to work in intelligence at the Pentagon. He was discharged from the Army when the war ended.

Determined to forge a career in music, Anderson began to write original works and to contribute more arrangements to the Boston Pops Orchestra. In addition, Fiedler asked him to conduct. During the 1950’s Anderson gained international fame for his light concert music and for his songs. He recorded for Decca Records, and his Blue Tango went gold in 1952.

In the 1960’s, Anderson augmented his arranging and compositional activities with guest-conducting for several orchestras near his home in Connecticut and in such venues as the Hollywood Bowl. In the 1970’s, the Boston Pops invited Anderson to guest-conduct during a televised concert tribute to his career. Anderson told his wife that it was “the most important evening of my life.” Anderson married Eleanor Firke in 1942, and they had four children: Jane, Eric, Rolf, and Kurt. He composed and conducted until the end of his life, dying of cancer in 1975.

The Music

Anderson was a skilled arranger, and he brought a pronounced sense of play to his compositions, eliciting unexpected sounds from an orchestra. He scored for nontraditional instruments, such as a manual typewriter, which takes center stage for The Typewriter. The soloist taps the keys in rhythm, and the instrumentalists help to sound the margin bell and to imitate the clunk of the carriage as it returns at the end of a line. For Sandpaper Ballet, Anderson was inspired by vaudeville dancers who sprinkled sand on the stage to accent their steps. The orchestra’s percussionists used sandpaper-covered blocks to scrape out their parts, the composer indicating fine, medium, and coarse grade to achieve the desired effect. The Waltzing Cat rivals any Viennese waltz, with violins imitating “meows,” and Anderson finds the perfect coda: an instrumental bark that sends the musical feline scurrying.

Jazz Pizzicato.Anderson was still in college when Fiedler heard his arrangements for the Harvard Band. That led to an invitation to compose a work for the Boston Pops string section, with Anderson creating a sprightly one-minute, forty-five-second flurry of plucked strings that Fiedler immediately added to the Pops’ repertoire. This launched a decades-long working relationship between Fiedler and Anderson, with the eminent conductor introducing Anderson to music publishers. In the wake of Jazz Pizzicato came Jazz Legato, which Anderson wrote as a companion piece.

Sleigh Ride.This perennial holiday classic may be Anderson’s best-known composition. In 1948, the first time Fiedler and the Boston Pops played it, the enthusiastic audience demanded that they play it again. In three minutes, the work depicts a sleigh, drawn by horses, skimming over a snowy landscape and fading into the distance. Within the delightful melody, Anderson scored horse whinnies, the clip-clop of horse hooves, and the smart crack of a whip, elements that are often obscured in the later version, which included lyrics by Mitchell Parish. The renditions of “Sleigh Ride”‘ by Gene Autry, Karen Carpenter, and other singers are still heard on the radio at Christmastime, and the Ventures performed it rock style. Anderson claimed he composed it during a heat wave.

The Syncopated Clock.One day, while he was serving in military intelligence at the Pentagon, Anderson was distracted by the ticking of a clock, and he conceived the idea of a timepiece that did not keep a regular beat. This time, he thought of the title first, and then he composed the rhythmically complex song for orchestra to go with it. For a few years, The Syncopated Clock was played by the Boston Pops and other orchestras. In 1950 Decca Records asked Anderson to record an album entirely of his music, and he included this work. An executive at CBS heard it and wanted to use it as a theme song for a program of old movies the network was about to debut called The Late Show. After the first program, CBS received dozens of phone calls—not about the movie but about the memorable theme. The Syncopated Clock became attached to the program, and it became widely recognized, enhancing Anderson’s reputation. Later, the onomatopoeic “Plink, Plank, Plunk!” became the theme for a long-running television game show, I’ve Got a Secret.

Blue Tango.Written while he was still in the Army, Blue Tango showcased Anderson’s facility for combining various musical elements in one piece. As the title indicates, there were South American rhythms and blues phrasings. He added some jazz aspects, with swelling dynamics and an irresistible beat. The danceable song became a favorite on radio and on jukeboxes, and it reportedly was the first instrumental record to sell a million copies. No one was more surprised at the success of Blue Tango than its unassuming composer, who watched in amazement as it climbed up the charts. Anderson claimed he wrote concert music, not pop music. He underestimated the infectious quality that permeates all his work.

Concerto in C Major.Written in 1953, Concerto in C Major for piano was Anderson’s attempt at a full-scale orchestral work. He completed it just two weeks before it premiered in Chicago, played by the Grant Park Symphony Orchestra. For the composer, it was an ambitious work, including solo piano, one piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, one tuba, timpani, suspended cymbals, maracas, claves, snare drum, strings, and cowbell. It had four-part fugues, tango rhythms, and, as evidenced by the cowbell, a hoedown theme. Although Concerto in C Major was performed two more times, Anderson was dissatisfied, withdrawing it with the intention of revising what he considered its weak spots. He never returned to it; after his death, his family released the work.

Goldilocks.In 1958 Anderson tried his hand at a Broadway show. The book was written by Walter and Jean Kerr, and the musical starred Don Ameche and Elaine Stritch. The story involved a comical feud between a stage actress and a movie director trying to find the financing to make an epic film about ancient Egypt. Anderson’s score featured several songs and even a ballet. The show closed after 161 performances. Critics were generally positive about the music for Goldilocks, one calling it “charming,” although most agreed the story was flawed.

Musical Legacy

Film composer John Williams, who conducted the Boston Pops Orchestra for several years, said that Anderson’s music “remains forever as young and fresh as the very day on which it was composed.” More than sixty years after he created them, his arrangements for the Harvard Band remain a part of its repertoire, and its new band quarters were named the Anderson Band Center in 1995. In 2003 Anderson’s hometown of Cambridge dedicated the corner near his boyhood home as Leroy Anderson Square. Extensively recorded and performed, Anderson’s music retains its timeless quality.

Principal Works

band works:Ticonderoga March, 1945; Governor Bradford March, 1948; A Trumpeter’s Lullaby, 1949; Bugler’s Holiday, 1954; March of the Two Left Feet, 1970.

musical theater (music): Goldilocks, 1958 (libretto by Walter Kerr and Jean Kerr).

orchestral works:Jazz Pizzicato, 1938; Jazz Legato, 1939; Promenade, 1945 (for strings and trumpet); The Syncopated Clock, 1945 (with Mitchell Parish); Fiddle-Faddle, 1947; The Irish Suite, 1947 (additional movements, 1949); Old MacDonald Had a Farm, 1947; Sleigh Ride, 1948 (with Parish); The Typewriter, 1950; The Waltzing Cat, 1950 (with Parish); Belle of the Ball, 1951 (with Parish); Blue Tango, 1951 (with Parish); The Penny-Whistle Song, 1951; Plink, Plank, Plunk!, 1951; Song of the Bells, 1951; Girl in Satin, 1953; Summer Skies, 1953; The Bluebells of Scotland, 1954; The First Day of Spring, 1954; Sandpaper Ballet, 1954; Arietta, 1962; Clarinet Candy, 1962; Home Stretch, 1962.

piano works:Concerto in C Major, 1953; Forgotten Dreams, 1954 (with Parish).

Bibliography

Anderson, Leroy. “How to Spoil Your Concert.” The Instrumentalist 44, no. 1 (August, 1989): 69. An interesting perspective from Anderson the conductor about how concert presentations can be improved for the audience.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. “The Syncopated Clock Still Ticks.” Music Journal 26, no. 9 (September, 1968): 30-31. Anderson describes how he conceived one of his most recognized pieces and how it migrated to television.

Biegel, Jeffrey. “Composer Leroy Anderson Went from Harvard to the Boston Pops.” Clavier 34, no. 6 (July/August, 2004): 20-21, 24. A brief but thoughtful overview of Anderson’s life, including an analysis of individual works.

Tommasini, Anthony. “Tuneful Gems from a Master of a Lost Art.” The New York Times, March 10, 1996. In an album review of a collection of Anderson’s music, the writer describes several of the composer’s most famous works.