Harry E. Dickson, Boston Symphony Orchestra, 94
DGH
Harry Ellis Dickson, a decades-long fixture at the Boston
[Massachusetts] Symphony Orchestra (BSO) and father-in-law of former
governor Michael Dukakis, died yesterday in Faulkner Hospital, at the
age of 94.
One of the city's most prominent musicians for 60 years, Mr. Dickson
joined the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1938, and the association
lasted for the rest of his life. He played in the first violin section
for 49 years until his retirement, but he never retired from the Pops,
which he first conducted in 1955 as an assistant to Arthur Fiedler.
After giving up playing, he also became music director of the Boston
Classical Orchestra, where his love for the mainstream concert
repertory shone through. In 1999, the symphony named him music
director laureate. Last night, the symphony dedicated its first number
to his memory.
He guest-conducted Pops concerts across the United States and Canada,
as well as in Europe, and wrote three books about his lifetime in
music.
He was a witty and experienced raconteur, a polished after-dinner
speaker, a generous man, and the best good-will ambassador the BSO
ever had. Of all his professional accomplishments, he was most proud
of having founded the Orchestra's Youth Concerts in 1960, and nothing
delighted him more than greetings from alumni of those programs. He
liked to say that "there is no 'special' music for young people and
you can't play down to them. They have no prejudices."
The Boston Symphony Orchestra played "Siegfried Idyll" by Wagner last
night in memory of Mr. Dickson.
Mr. Dickson spent his life in the shadow of people who were more
famous than he was. But he never let that limit him, and on his own
merits he earned a permanent place in the hearts of the public and of
his colleagues.
In a tribute to Mr. Dickson, Pops conductor laureate John Williams
said, "Harry was a lovely gentleman; and when I was invited to take a
position he must have wanted himself, the first thing he did was make
me feel at home. Through the years he couldn't have been more
gracious, sweet and supportive; he was a living representative of a
background and history that was our privilege to become a part of.
Here is the secret of Harry: He loved the Boston Symphony, he loved
the Pops, and he loved the music -- and most of all, he loved the
audience, and that's the reason they loved him. He walked onstage, and
everyone knew he loved this whole thing and them; he embraced them,
and they embraced him. He was at the living core of this wonderful
institution."
Pops conductor Keith Lockhart said, "Harry was the collective soul of
the Boston Symphony -- he represented the throughline of the
institution; he was part of more than half of its history and
tradition, and that kind of experience is irreplaceable. Sitting down
and listening to him spin out stories is something I never tired of. I
shared some programs with Harry both in Boston and in Hyannis, and it
was always an honor to introduce him to the crowd and watch him bask
in well-deserved adulation. He is irreplaceable, and there will never
be another Harry Ellis Dickson."
Mr. Dickson was born in 1905, in a three-decker on Western Avenue in
Cambridge, Massachusetts, to parents who had emigrated from the
Ukraine. He started taking violin lessons at 6, and later played in
the orchestra at Somerville High School. By the time he was 14, he was
performing professionally in local vaudeville houses. After studies at
the New England Conservatory, Mr. Dickson went to Berlin in 1931 and
stayed for three years, studying with Carl Flesch and Max Restal at
the Hochschule fuer Musik. This was one of the most artistically
exciting and turbulent times in the history of the city, and Mr.
Dickson loved to tell stories about the great musicians he heard --
and about the time in 1933 he went to Potsdam to see Hitler
inaugurated as chancellor. It was in 1932, in Berlin, that Mr. Dickson
met Jane K. Williams, whom he married in 1934; she died in 1977.
Later in 1933, it became clear to Mr. Dickson it was time to get out
of Germany. He returned to Boston and worked as a freelance musician
for five years; in this period he conducted the Boston Civic
Orchestra, a federally sponsored music project. In 1938, BSO music
director Serge Koussevitzky auditioned and accepted him. Mr. Dickson
played under five music directors: Koussevitzky, Charles Munch, Erich
Leinsdorf, William Steinberg, and Seiji Ozawa. He studied conducting
with Pierre Monteux at the former BSO music director's school in
Hancock, Maine.
Mr. Dickson had met Arthur Fielder before going to Berlin, and the
acquaintance was renewed when he returned. In 1955, when the maestro
was recovering from surgery, Mr. Dickson stepped in and took over most
of the Pops season. The next year Fiedler suggested that Mr. Dickson
be made assistant conductor, and for the next 44 years Mr. Dickson was
a regular and popular presence on the Pops podium. When guest
conductors appeared during the Pops season, Mr. Dickson usually took a
holiday from playing, but for every Fiedler concert, he played in the
orchestra as a gesture of respect.
After Fiedler's death, Mr. Dickson published a memoir of their
friendship, "Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops."
"I was probably as close to Arthur Fiedler as anybody ever got,"
Dickson told an interviewer, "and that wasn't very close.
Professionally, you had to admire him. Whatever function I have is
tied up in the old Pops tradition, and I try to make my programs as
much like Fiedler programs as possible." For years Mr. Dickson
conducted the annual Arthur Fiedler Memorial Concert at the Hatch
Memorial Shell on the Esplanade.
During the 1978-79 season, when Fiedler's health was failing, Mr.
Dickson took over many of his concerts, and naturally stood among the
candidates to succeed him. But by then he was past 75 himself, and
John Williams was chosen. Whatever his private feelings may have been,
Mr. Dickson was unfailingly gracious in his public remarks about
Fiedler's successors and in his private behavior toward them. He also
always spoke well of Seiji Ozawa, though in his last book, "Beating
Time," he admitted the resentment he felt at the management's
suggestion he retire from playing after 49 seasons; he would have
liked to stay for 50.
In that book, too, he wrote openly about the widely publicized
problems of his daughter, Kitty Dukakis, and his love for her. "Who
could have foreseen the price she would have to pay for being in the
limelight, for never losing her vulnerability, her sensitivity, her
concern for others?"
Outside symphony hall, Kitty Dukakis remembered her father yesterday
as a gentle parent with a sense of humor and a penchant for
entertaining at family functions. "He always had a funny story," she
said. Coming home from family dinners as a girl, Dukakis said, her
"stomach hurt because I laughed so hard."
Even after retiring from the BSO in 1987, Mr. Dickson remained very
active with the symphony and healthy.
"He had enormous energy left," Dukakis said. "Until the week before he
went into the hospital, he was riding his bike 30 minutes a day."
Mr. Dickson always seemed eager for more activity and excitement, even
in his last years, which were shadowed by medical problems and
surgery. Even when he could no longer stand, he continued to conduct
from a high chair on the podium. He was depressed at having to slow
down, but told everyone he'd learned to enjoy his depression. Although
he kept many aspects of his life and thinking private, he loved the
limelight, the police escorts, conducting the national anthem at
athletic events, sharing the podium with celebrities such as Walter
Cronkite, Art Buchwald, Beverly Sills, Regis Philbin, Joan Bennett
Kennedy, and Julia Child (who conducted with a soup spoon). Danny Kaye
became a special friend, and when Kaye began conducting orchestras,
usually at fund-raising events for charitable causes, Mr. Dickson
served as his coach and teacher.
He was always unduly modest about his conducting, and anticipated and
deflected criticism by telling stories on himself. He would speak of
returning to his place in the orchestra after a night on the podium
and being asked by his standmate, "Where were you last night?"
"I once asked the musicians if they could see me," he recounted, "and
they assured me it wouldn't matter if they couldn't -- they wouldn't
be looking at me anyway!"
But Mr. Dickson was far more serious about music than his repertory of
stories for every occasion ever let on -- he collected most of them in
his book "Gentlemen, More Dolce Please!" If he was not a virtuoso
conductor, he didn't aspire to be; he sought to share his pleasure in
music of every kind, and he did. And the pleasure he took in music was
informed by style, tradition, and taste.
Mr. Dickson held many honors and decorations; he particularly prized
being named chevalier in the order of arts and letters by the French
government.
Shirley
DGH wrote:
I really enjoy listening to the Boston Pops, especially on the 4th of
July. I have never been disappointed and I get to remain cool in my air
conditioned home...
What a nice tribute for such a talented artist and a kind person..