Having a professional musician in our team, we are expanding our music library rapidly.  We are working around the clock to re-organize our music selections and at the same time, one of our new features is: Conductor's Corner.  Conductor Jeffrey will be posting his music recommendations from time to time.  Please feel free to send him emails if you like to talk about music.

**********

Conductor's Corner: The Memorable Maestro – Frederick Fennell ~ by JeffreyT

Recently, I’ve noticed the title “The Legendary TAS Super LP List Returns!” on the cover of TAS in Issue 264, and I’ve also seen an album “HI-Fi a la Española” (Mercury SR-90144) which continues to hold up very well on the “Best of The Bunch: Classical” of TAS Super LP List for years. I am a Mercury aficionado, and this album is one of the best sounding Mercury recordings I have ever heard. The music itself is very attractive and interesting - as the title says, these tracks were written by nine composers from six countries (Spain, Cuba, Mexico, Brazil, USA and Australia), and the conductor of this album is Frederick Fennell (1914~2004) who conducts such pretty compositions in very emotional and thrilling way.

I have been a fan of Frederick Fennell since I first heard his recording on Mercury when I was young. He remained the best-known for his Mercury recordings with the Eastman Wind Ensemble. In 1952, Dr. Fennell organized the Eastman Wind Ensemble in Rochester, New York, and since that time he has unceasingly dedicated himself to the exploration of musical works originally scored for wind ensemble, and to the stimulating of interest on the part of contemporary composers in writing works for this particular instrumentation.

Frederick Fennell was long recognized as a preeminent conductor of the finest wind and percussion music, however, he is no stranger to the symphonic “pops” repertory too. He had been an annual guest conductor of the Boston “pops” since 1949, where his performance are characterized, in the words of a newspaper reviewer, “by a rare combination of wit, vivaciousness and musical sensitivity”.

Dr. Fennell brought to the wind ensemble a finesse of phrasing, dynamics and balance usually found only in orchestras. He claimed to have studied the conducting of Toscanini, Klemperer, Stokowski, Beecham and others through assiduous attendance at rehearsals and concerts.

I think, everything a conductor shows should reflect the music, and therefore when musicians see the music in the conductor, they have empathetic responses.  As a conductor, I have to say Fennell’s conducting gestures expressed completely the music.

I was very fortunate, I had participated in conducting workshop and studied conducting with Dr. Fennell in 1999 Taiwan. I will never forget this learning experience. Dr. Fennell had encouraged us, he said, “You have to learn how technique is developed by not talking, and if you can’t make it happen with your technique, all the words in the world are not going to do it for you.”

When we talked about other aspects of musicianship that do contribute to the overall development of a conductor, Dr. Fennell said: “You have to begin with solfege (a sight-reading book) because that takes care of everything.” I also remember Dr. Fennell once said, “Feeling must be a part of the musical line.” I’ve heard Dr. Fennell performed Richard Wagner’s “Elsa’s Procession to the Cathedral” in Taiwan, and adored how he made the slow piece – very expressively! He showed great intensity of Wagner’s music.

From 1984 to 1989, Dr. Fennell was appointed chief conductor of the Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra in Japan, and he transformed this Wind Orchestra into a world-class touring and recording group. The first piece for the rehearsal was March of Julius Fučík – Florentiner March.  Fennell’s first request was regarding the bass drum’s solo after the initial fanfare. “Bass drum is a low frequency instrument which should be sounded with a low frequency.” Fennell said, as he personally tuned the instruments. Moreover, he also asked that the Trio portion should be played slower while sounding the melody with more emotions.

Frederick Fennell received numerous honors from the worlds of music and academia, and in 1994 he was presented with the Theodore Thomas Award of the American Conductors’ Guild, in recognition of his leadership and service to wind band performance throughout the world. The two previous recipients of this award had been Solti and Bernstein. He was undoubtedly one of the very greatest conductors of the twentieth century.

And, finally, back to the album - “HI-Fi a la Española”, Dr. Fennell sparkled in the light classical repertoires are among the best performances of these works on disc. You can feel both disciplined and lively ensemble playing in a program of light classics. Thus, this is definitely one of my “Desert Island” records.