Sleigh Ride

Leroy Anderson was close to home when he went to Harvard as a student in the twenties - he was born in Cambridge to Swedish immigrant parents. Serving during the Second World War, his linguistic skills led to his heading the Scandinavian Military Intelligence desk at the Pentagon.  However, it is for his lifelong association with the Boston Pops that we know him.  For the Boston Pops and Arthur Fiedler, its conductor, Anderson’s pieces included Bugler’s Holiday, Fiddle-Faddle, Syncopated Clock, and The Typewriter.  (Often, Anderson conduct the orchestra in his works, and for The Typewriter, he would pretend to type while the orchestra played along with a percussionist at the eponymous typewriter!)  Ironically, Sleigh Ride was written in July, at the Anderson summer home in Woodbridge, CT, during a heat wave.

Reuben Blundell