THOUGHTS ABOUT-MUSIC

Evening Star, Issue 25565, 18 August 1945, Page 10

THOUGHTS ABOUT-MUSIC

[By L.D.A.] The famous British orchestral conductor, Dr Malcolm Sargent, is once more in : Australia, after an interval of nine years. Whether he will be, or has been, invited to visit New Zealand before returning to England, I do not know at the moment oif writing, but lovers of high-class orchestral music will certainly be gravely disappointed if that should prove not to be the case. Meanwhile Dr Sargent is giving delight to crowded audiences in Sydney and Melbourne, besides having to face the hordes of autograph hunters and the inevitable interviewer. If there is a busier man in Australia at the present moment, he must be a curiosity. On the dav that a Melbourne paper interviewed him, Dr Sargent had already been besieged bv reporters, signed countless autograph books, answered endless : telephone calls, conducted an" orchestral rehearsal, met innumerable notabilities, lunched with some of them", and was to dine with others, in addition to the prospect of five important appointments that same evening. But by one who. like Dr Sargent, has conducted at least five concerts every week during' the war years in Britain—sometimes in the middle of a" blitz attack —such davs of eontinuors activity are taken in his stride, as the Melbourne, interviewer expressed it.

In reply to questions, Dr Sargent said his conducting days dated from 1921. when he made his debut primarily as a composer, and directed the Queen's Hall Orchestra in a periformance of his tone-poem. ' Impressions of-a Windy Day.' That windy day, remarked Dr Sargent humorously, blew him away from his own creative work, and he has never since found time to take it up again. "I would still love to go on with it," he continued, " but I can't get away from other men's works. l Perhaps I am awaiting sonieinajor catastrophe, such as breaking a.leg; even fracturing an arm didn't do it. T conducted for six weeks one time. with my left arm iii a sling, in absolute asr'onv. Travelling all'the time, too How did 1 get it? Had a passion, for hor=e riding and took an awful tum'Oe. No more riding since. I've no. hobbies outside music "

Continual ac+'vitv has kept Dr Sargent voi'"K. . He does not look his 40 years Hardly a trace of siray shows in 'hifi black hnir; his characteristic grin is essentiailv boyish; he moves with youth's vitality.

After his debut, said Dr Sargent, lie taught conducting at the Royal College of Music, then toured with the British National Opera, the D'Oyley Carte Opera, and the Llandudno Orchestra. As musical director for Robert Mayer's children's concerts and conductor of the Courtald-Sargent concerts, established by the late Mrs Samuel Courtauld mainly for business employees' audiences, he further increased h.is reputation. The Mayer concerts shut down with the war and the evacuation of children from London, but the education committee in Britain makes it possible to give children's concerts in other towns.

The Liverpool Philharmonic, organised two years ago, is the hub of his work, although he still keeps in contact with the London Philharmonic and other organisations. He had charge of the Halle Orchestra in Manchester after Sir Hamilton Harty's death, and watched the famous Free Trade. Hall, where many noted conductors had held forth, burn under a bombing. Standing on the roof of his hotel at the time, he kicked incendiaries off as fast as they landed—" a running football kick with a prayer that they wouldn't, explode before my toe got to them." and thus helped to save that structure. The average of five concerts a week was increased to 12 one week, when the orchestra took over a music hall show and music took the place of the " turns." 14-weeks' tour through blitzed towns was another war-time effort

In Australia when the war broke out, Dr Sargent got back in time to conduct the first choral concert of the war in London the week before Christmas, liondon was being evacuated rapidly Where the musicians were to come from no one quite knew. But Sargent sent out a call for Saturday noon. Bv noon 200 members of the Royal Choral Society had shown up. and he held an hour's rehearsal. By concert time there were 600, including orchestra, and ' The Messiah ' went on without further rehearsal. The orchestra and singers were tired, but under the inspiration of the audience, gave everything they had in a fine performance. " .1 beat the last beat in old Queen's Hall," he says sadly. " We gave Elgar's ' Dream of Gerontius.' The last words are ' How long, O Lord. Amen.' There was a great hush over the audience at the quiet close of the music Next day the orchestra went to the hall No walls standing It hadn't been long.' 1

A musical ambassador to neutral countries, he has been twice to Sweden, once to Spain As an inde.v of a country's opinion, ho reports that German conductors are no longer welcome in

the former kingdom. And in Lisbon he received what he considers one of the highest compliments possible. The concerts were so successful that German subscribers were forbidden by the Gestapo to attend them. " They even posted spies in the boxes behind the curtains-, equipped with opera glasses to see that no German faces were present," he chuckled. "Another of what I consider • my greatest triumphs is the fact that 1 was mentioned three times scornfully by Lord Haw-Haw." he said gleefully. " 1 was really on their black list—to be shot among the first when the Germans invaded us, because I had gone to Palestine to conduct." But that's all over now. The boot is on Lord Haw-Haw's other foot.