Malcolm Sargent
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Sir Harold Malcolm Watts Sargent (April 29, 1895 – October 3, 1967) was a British conductor, organist and composer.
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[edit] Life and Career
Sargent was born in Bath Villas, Ashford in Kent England to a working-class, but musical family. He was brought up in Stamford, Lincolnshire where he won a scholarship to Stamford School. At the age of fourteen, he accompanied rehearsals for an amateur production of The Gondoliers at Stamford. He earned his diploma from the Royal College of Organists at age sixteen.
[edit] Early career
After a brief service in the army, Sargent worked first as an organist at Melton Mowbray Parish Church, Leicestershire. At the same time, he worked on many musical projects in Leicester, where he not only conducted but also produced Gilbert and Sullivan and other operas for the amateur societies. The Duke of Windsor and his entourage often hunted in Leicester and watched the annual Gilbert and Sullivan operas there together with the Duke of York (later King George VI). Sargent enjoyed mixing with the aristocracy on these occasions. In his early 20s, Sargent became England's youngest Doctor of Music with a degree from Durham.
Sargent's break came when Sir Henry Wood visited De Montfort Hall, Leicester, early in 1921 with the Queen's Hall orchestra. He commissioned Sargent (as it was customary to commission a piece from a local composer) to write a piece Impression on a Windy Day. However, Sargent completed the work so late that Wood did not have sufficient time to learn the piece, and so Sargent conducted the first performance himself. Wood recognised not only the worth of the piece but also Sargent's talent as a conductor and gave him the chance to repeat the exercise, this time making his debut at the The Proms at London's Queen's Hall on 11 October the same year.
Sargent soon abandoned composition in favor of conducting, on the advice of Wood, among others. He founded the Leicester Symphony Orchestra, an amateur orchestra, in 1922 and became a lecturer at the Royal College of Music, in London, in 1923. He quickly developed a reputation as an excellent conductor of large choral groups, and he was reportedly associated at one time or another with every major British choral society.
Sargent's success and flashy style made him very popular with the ladies, and he was soon forced to marry a serving girl. By 1926, he and his wife had two children, a daughter who was to die from polio in 1944, and a son Peter. But the marriage was unhappy. Sargent was continually unfaithful, often drawn to his conquests by social status. Elizabeth Courtauld, wife of the industrialist Samuel Courtauld, promoted a popular series of subscription concerts for Sargent beginning in 1929.
Early in his career, Sargent worked at the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company conducting for special engagements in London, including the autumn 1926 season at the Princes Theatre and the 1929-30 winter season inaugurating the rebuilt Savoy Theatre. Sargent was criticized for "tampering" with the scores and by the principal cast and director J. M. Gordon for his noticeably brisker tempi, but he pointed out that his changes were based on a study of Arthur Sullivan's original manuscripts. He also hired younger, fresher voices. Rupert D'Oyly Carte supported Sargent's innovations.
Sargent worked primarily with Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes from 1927 to 1930. In 1928, he also became conductor of the Royal Choral Society in their semi-staged performances of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's Hiawatha at the Royal Albert Hall. He retained this post until his death.
[edit] High and low years
Sargent tackled a wide range of repertoire (and recorded much of it), but he was particularly noted for performances of choral pieces. He consciously promoted British music, conducting Handel's Messiah, with his large choruses, and the premieres of At the Boar's Head (1925) by Gustav Holst; Hugh the Drover (1924), and Sir John in Love (1929) by Ralph Vaughan Williams; and William Walton's oratorio Belshazzar's Feast (at the Leeds Triennial Festival of 1931). To popularise classical music, he conducted many concerts for school students.
In 1932 the sub-standard London Symphony Orchestra was replaced with the new London Philharmonic Orchestra, its musical direction shared equally between Sargent and Thomas Beecham. In October 1932, Sargent collapsed with tuberculosis. For almost two years he was unable to work, and it was only later in the 1930s that he returned to the concert scene with the London Philharmonic Orchestra.
After giving an ill-advised Daily Telegraph interview in 1936, in which he said that an orchestra musician did not deserve a "job for life" and should "give of his lifeblood with every bar he plays", Sargent lost much respect with musicians. But he continued to work, even though he faced hostility from orchestras. Sargent conducted the premiere of Riders to the Sea by Ralph Vaughan Williams in 1937. He slowly rebuilt his reputation through the war years, directing the Hallé Orchestra in Manchester (1939-1942) and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra (1942-1948) and became a popular BBC Radio Home Service host. And he continued the many liasons with ladies of influence.
[edit] Later career and legacy
Sargent was chief conductor of the Proms from 1948 until his death in 1967, and of the BBC Symphony Orchestra from 1950 to 1957. He was knighted for his services to music in 1947 and performed in numerous English-speaking countries during the postwar years, becoming a virtual musical ambassador for (and within) the Commonwealth of Nations. Nevertheless, he continued to promote British composers, conducting the premieres of Walton's opera Troilus and Cressida (1954) and Ralph Vaughan Williams' Symphony No. 9 (1958).
The 1950s and 1960s were also the peak of Sargent's recording career, and he made many recordings with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and others. Sargent also returned to D'Oyly Carte for the summer 1951 "Festival of Britain" season at the Savoy Theatre and the winter 1961-62 and 1963-64 seasons at the Savoy. In addition, he toured in the United States and Canada in 1963, 1964, and 1965. Sargent never fully recovered from the 1936 interview, and he became more and more isolated in the musical world. By the mid-1960s, his health began to deteriorate.
The Malcolm Sargent Primary School in Stamford is named after Sargent. A number of purported explanations have been advanced for Sargent's nickname "Flash Harry". The "Harry" was short for his real first name, Harold. But the "Flash" was likely due to his impeccable appearance (he always wore a red or white carnation in his buttonhole, and the carnation is now the symbol of the school named for him). This was perhaps reinforced by his brisk tempi, early in his career, and by a story about his racing from one recording session to another. Another oft-repeated explanation, that he was named after cartoonist Ronald Searle's St. Trinian's character, "Flash Harry", is certainly wrong, Since Sargent's nickname originated during his very brief army service in World War I, and the St. Trinian's character did not appear until the first St. Trinian's film was made in 1954.
Sargent and fellow conductor Sir Thomas Beecham were renowned for their public antipathy towards each other. Beecham quipped, in reference to the young conductor Herbert von Karajan, that he was "a kind of musical Malcolm Sargent". But even Beecham conceded that Sargent "is the greatest choirmaster we have ever produced; he makes the buggers sing like the blazes".
Sargent underwent surgery in July 1967 for pancreatic cancer, and although he appeared and spoke at the last night of the Proms that year, he died in October at the age of 72.
[edit] Recordings
Among his many recordings, Sargent conducted the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company recordings for H.M.V., including The Yeomen of the Guard (1929), The Pirates of Penzance (1929), Iolanthe (1930), H.M.S. Pinafore (1930), Patience (1930), Yeomen (excerpts 1931), Pirates (excerpts 1931), The Gondoliers (excerpts 1931), Ruddigore (1932), and Princess Ida (1932); and for Decca, more than thirty years later, Yeomen (1964), and Princess Ida (1965).
Between 1957 and 1963 Sargent conducted nine of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas for E.M.I. recordings using the Pro Arte Orchestra, the Glyndebourne Festival Chorus, and soloists from the world of grand opera. These included Trial by Jury, Pinafore, Pirates, Patience, Iolanthe, The Mikado, Ruddigore, Yeomen, and The Gondoliers. Sargent used an orchestra of 37 players at the Savoy (the same number as Sullivan) but sometimes added a few more when recording (Ayer, p. 385).
Sargent also made many non-Gilbert and Sullivan recordings throughout his career. Several piano concertos, including those by Beethoven, Rachmaninov and Dvořák were recorded in the 1930s. He also conducted some of the first stereo recordings of dances by Sir Edward German and several overtures of Rossini operas in 1958 and 1961, respectively.
[edit] References
- Malcolm Sargent a biography by Charles Reid, London, 1968, published by Hamish Hamilton Ltd.
- Tunes of Glory: The Life of Malcolm Sargent by Richard Aldous. Hutchinson, London 2001. ISBN 0 09 180131 1
- The Outline of Music by Malcolm Sargent and M. Cooper, London 1962.
- Ayre, Leslie (1972). The Gilbert & Sullivan Companion. London: W.H. Allen & Co Ltd. Introduction by Martyn Green.
[edit] External links
- Malcolm Sargent (Conductor) Biography, photos, information about recordings and links
- Extensive review of 2001 Aldous biography
- Leicester Symphony Orchestra
- Malcolm Sargent Primary School
- Profile of Sargent at "Who Was Who in the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company"
- Brief profile of Sargent
- Correspondence from Sargent
- Filmography
- Analysis of Sargent's G&S tempi in the 1930s as compared with the 1960s
| Preceded by: Hamilton Harty | Principal Conductors, Hallé Orchestra 1939–1942 | Succeeded by: John Barbirolli |
| Preceded by: unknown | Principal Conductors, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra 1942–1948 | Succeeded by: Hugo Rignold |
| Preceded by: Adrian Boult | Principal Conductors, BBC Symphony Orchestra 1950–1957 | Succeeded by: Rudolf Schwarz |
