BRITAIN’S AMBASSADOR OF MUSIC

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31908, 8 February 1969, Page 4

BRITAIN’S AMBASSADOR OF MUSIC

[Reviewed by H.N.] Malcolm Sargent. By Charle Reid. Hamish Hamiltoi 462 pp. Appendices. So colourful a personalit: as Sir Malcolm Sargen demands a colourful bit graphy and this is exact!; what Charles Reid has wril ten. All the necessary pact warmth, verve, droll humou are here, and Sir Malcoln steps from the pages, debor air, charming, brilliant a always. Nor has this beei achieved by ignoring th faults and high-lighting th' virtues of Sir Malcolm—al the characteristics are note: and discussed with disarming candour. Charles Reid knev and understood Malcoln Sargent, and he knows am understands music—a doubl< understanding which ha resulted in a superb bio graphy. There is, however, a strangi omission; Sargent’s personal private life is hardly men tioned. Sargent married, ii 1924, Eileen Laura Hardini Horne, a charming and ele gant girl. She appears agaii only when granted a decre< nisi in 1946 on the grounds o desertion. Their daughter Pamela, was adored by hei father and her death, at ai early age, from poliomyeliti: was the great grief of hi: life. On any other aspect oi his domestic life—complet< silence. One is left to con elude that there simply wa: time for nothing but music. Malcolm Sargent’s fathei was a full-time clerk and part time organist. But the part time work was bis life. Tc him music was an obsession and he passed an acute sens! tivity to music on to his son Malcolm could not remembei a time when he was hot play' ing the piano. At the age of 14 he did transposition exercises on the parlour harmonium. During one school holiday he transposed the entire hymn-book starting each hymn in “C” and going through the whole cycle. He could play many things from memory in any key at a moment’s notice. He knew all there is to know about transposing - instruments: horns, trumpets, clarinets, long before he mounted an orchestral rostrum. As a young man Malcolm gave private singing and piano lessons in Melton as well as in Stamford, and between times worked for his doctorate, which he earned at the age of 24 from Durham University, the youngest Doctor of Music ever in Bri tain. He got through what is normally a five-year course ir 18 months “by going to bed al three in the morning anc getting up at eight” Hi: will-power and temperament his capacity to please people and stay in their mind’s eye were developing at the same pace as his professional facility and confidence. He talked incessantly on all manner of subjects (an ability to bt used to great advantage latei as a member of the 8.8. C Brains Trust). When he arrived for rehearsals with his various choral groups he made everybody feel enormously glad to be alive simply because he looked enormously glad to be alive himself. This was the famous Sargent vitalism. II was to seal his success and sway, especially with great choirs at home and abroad, down half a century. Choirs were his great love and they responded superbly. By playing on their imaginations and

minds he could lift them to eg glorious, nerve - tingling , n . heights. In choral music he had five great favourites: The "Messiah, the B minor Mass, ty St Matthew's Passion, Beetnt hoven’s Choral Symphony and the Dream of Gerontius—he , y called them his five “spiritual peaks.” :e ’ i With orchestras Sargent url .

* jf was never on such easy and r amiable terms as with choirs —they never fell at his feet ' n as the choralists did. For one i s thing they were professionals i s themselves, many were older jf men, some were also sucte cessful conductors. All the n . same they respected and rels sponded enthusiastically to his musical acumen, his technical alterness, his passion for perfecting details, they knew they were secure from - 0 unexpected pitfalls with Maln colm Sargent on the rostrum, j. During the five years 19211. 1925 his career spilled over >r and multiplied at a prodigious 1 y. pace and bn several levels. It , >f all began with his debut as r- a composer-conductor under r- Henry Wood’s sponsorship at , >1 a Queen’s Hall Promenade [ e Concert. In the second and [ g third years he recruited, ! g trained and launched the . e Leicester Symphony Orchesn tra. In the fourth year he a became musical director of K the Robert Mayer Concerts ,t for Children, London, remain- ' j- ing with them until 1939, and ( 1 s’ was chosen by the British! n National Opera Company as conductor. In the fifth year n he conducted his first cond certs with the Royal Choral > , s Society and for the Royal d Philharmonic Society. He had IS become a minor, though d much • canvassed national r . figure and was soon to be acst cepted as a major one. i- His engagement book bets came an increasingly comn plex jigsaw puzzle with four it or five concerts a week, resi bearsaL travel, all to be is fitted, in- He was buoyant, t, eager, and remained so le throughout years of scurry e, when his apparent object was le to be jn three places at once. 1- During 1942 he conducted the d equivalent of one symphony rf or choral concert a day, >e shuttling backwards and for:r wards hundreds of miles be--1 tween engagements all without fluster or fret and never 1 r- taking so much as an aspirin, il At home he conducted a y dozen or more choral and >e orchestral societies, and flew ie with suitcases full of scores >e. to Scandinavia,' Greece, e South Africa, South America, It Australia, New Zealand. Of d his scores he had this to say: it: “In my library are a thousand 1, selected scores—soo of these ' ■s are as familiar to me as the < y palm of my hand. I could I r- start rehearsing any one of ' d I them at a moment’s notice.” :

And of his method of work: "There’s nothing meretricious in my preparation of music. I rehearse for hours and hours with the greatest care. Always I have three or font scores by my bedside—l wake up in the small hours and work for several hours on them, marking all bowings for the strings, all breathing for

A SKETCH from “Hoffnung’s Encore,” published by Dennis Dobson. the wind and working out problems of balance. Sometimes, learning new scores, it means working nineteen hours a day.” In 1947 Sargent appeared among new Knights Bachelor in the Birthday Honours for services to his country through music at home and abroad. His unofficial title was

“England's ambassador of music.” Sargent's satorial elegance is, of course, a byword—the straight back, the immaculate tailoring, the carnation, A conductor working at Sargent’s pace and travelling up to 40,000 miles a year does not wear clothes out—he devours them.” At any one time Sargent had six evening dress suits in his wardrobe, six tropical outfits, a dozen day suits. In hot weather he would wear five shirts and five collars a day, before rehearsal, after rehearsal before the concert, during the interval and after the concert. He never looked crumpled or wilted no matter how high the temperature soared. Even during the war he managed his carnation, a red one during the day, a white one at night. No-one grudged him these trappings —they were an applauded part of the Sargent “show ” At the age of seventy, Malcolm Sargent appeared at the London “Proms,” unexpectedly, on the last night of the 1967 Season, made a ringing and sanguine speech as was his custom and received the usual tumultuous ovation —“the standard Sargent ovation, prolonged and thunderous." The Proms had been so much a part of his life for so long nothing could have been more fitting than a climax —although none but he knew that he was dying. The “Promers” adored him and he responded ebulliently. Of the young he said “they are so keen, enthusiastic: they've got used to hearing serious and experimental music." His wish had long been that his musical gift should be snatched rather than whittled away. So he accepted the doctor’s verdict with calm of spirit. His faith was strong, simple and absolute. To Dr Coggan, Archbishop of York, he said these last few words—“l always had faith. Now f have knowledge.”