Leader, PHILIP WHITEWAY
Conducted by CHARLES J. BRENNAN
MARY SPENCER- SMITH
August Max Fiedler, who was born in 1859, studied at the Leipzig Conservatorium and later joined the staff of the Hamburg Conservatorium, of which he became director in 1904. Fiedler's name is chiefly known as a conductor. He appeared in England with the London Symphony Orchestra in 1907 and in the following year was appointed chief conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. After four years in Boston he returned to Germany and in 1916 was appointed municipal musical director at Essen.
Tchaikovsky made more than one visit to Italy, and the ' Italian Capriccio ', among the gayest and most care-free of his compositions, was composed during a trip in 1880, most of which he spent in Rome. Writing from there to Mme. von Meek, the good friend who enjoyed so much of his confidence, he says: ' I am working at an Italian Fantasia based on folk songs. Thanks to the charming themes, some of which I have taken from collections, and others which I have heard in the streets, this work will be effective.' (The music begins with the trumpet-call that Tchaikovsky heard every morning from a nearby barracks.) On its first appearance in Moscow, it did indeed prove to be successful, but when it was played in the following year (1881) in St. Petersburg, the critics condemned it as vulgar.