Yet another digression that will be explained (eventually): Revisiting Sir Malcolm Sargent

MIDNIGHT UPDATE: Okay, I think we're just about there. For anyone who's been following along as this post filled out from its original "preliminary version," thanks for your patience and persistence. -- Ed.

It all started when I couldn't resist a too-cheap-to-pass-up copy of this 18-CD EMI set devoted to "The Great Recordings" of Sir Malcolm Sargent (from which some of the music files we're hearing today are drawn).

by Ken

Yes, as it says above, another digression, following upon last week's "'Spurn not the nobly born': No, not the proper post planned for this week, but we do make a little progress, and we hear some really nice music." And yes, we're still enmeshed in Wagner's Die Meistersinger, going back to September 23's "Still on the trail of our two classic Operatic Bad Days, we pause to sniff an elder tree."

In fact over the past week I've gotten enmeshed-er, which is far from an unpleasant thing, except for the expanses of lower-male-voice growling and rasping and grinding one is expected to endure -- and indeed lots of apparent Wagner fans smile and nod, as if this is perfectly normal and acceptable. Yikes! Of course in other Wagner operas the problem becomes even more acute, especially in the higher vocal categories: the heroic soprano and tenor roles (Isolde and Brünnhilde; Tannhäuser, Tristan, Siegmund, and Siegfried).


SO HOW DID SIR MALCOLM SARGENT (1895-1967) OF ALL
PEOPLE BECOME THIS WEEK'S DESIGNATED DIVERSION?

Well, as noted in the caption above, I happened to chance upon a relatively inexpensive copy of that 18-CD Sargent commemorative set, and while there was lots of stuff in it that I was happy to have, there was one item in particular -- about three and a half minutes long -- which probably tipped the balance toward making the purchase purchase. It relates to a story I've old here at least once, and I guess I'll be telling it again when we get to the appropriate point in our overarching currently ongoing inquiries, into the question of how, or indeed whether, art matters.

Meanwhile, we've got some really nice music to listen to, by way of reminding ourselves just how good and how versatile a conductor Sargent was -- he could and did conduct pretty much anything, and did all of it indecently well.


HANDEL: Messiah

If there's one thing Sargent is usually immediately associated with, it's his conducting of the big choral works of the 19th-century British tradition, which of course took unto itself perhaps the greatest of all British choral works, although admittedly from an earlier era, Handel's Messiah, which he recorded three times, at roughly decade intervals beginning in 1947 (by coincidence, the year he was knighted). I thought it might be fun to cross-listen to some extracts.

Part I: Overture; Recitative and air (tenor), "Comfort ye, my people" . . .
"Ev'ry valley shall be exalted"

Recitative, "Comfort ye, my people"
Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people, saith your God.
Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem,
and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished,
that her iniquity is pardoned.
The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness,
prepare ye the way of the Lord,
make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

-- Isaiah 40:1-3

Air, "Ev'ry valley shall be exalted"
Ev'ry valley shall be exalted,
and ev'ry mountain and hill made low;
the crooked straight and the rough places plain.

-- Isaiah 40:4

["Comfort ye" at 5:05; "Ev'ry valley" at 8:41] James Johnston, tenor; Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Malcolm Sargent, cond. EMI, recorded May 29-June 2, 1947

["Comfort ye" at 5:20; "Ev'ry valley" at 9:04] Richard Lewis, tenor; Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Malcolm Sargent, cond. EMI, recorded 1958

["Comfort ye" at 5:09; "Ev'ry valley" at 9:09] Alexander Young, tenor; Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Malcolm Sargent, cond. Reader's Digest-Chesky, recorded May 11-22, 1965

Part II: Air (alto), "He was despisèd"

He was despisèd, and rejected of men,
a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.

-- Isaiah 53:3

He gave his back to the smiters,
and his cheeks to them that plucked off the hair.
He hid not his shame from and spitting.

-- Isaiah 50:6

Gladys Ripley, contralto; Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Malcolm Sargent, cond. EMI, recorded May 29-June 2, 1947

Monica Sinclair, contralto; Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Malcolm Sargent, cond. EMI, recorded 1958

Norma Procter, contralto; Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Malcolm Sargent, cond. Reader's Digest-Chesky, recorded May 11-22, 1965

Part II: Chorus, "Hallelujah!"

Hallelujah: for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth.

-- Apocalypse 19:6

Huddersfield Choral Society, Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Malcolm Sargent, cond. EMI, recorded May 29-June 2, 1947

Huddersfield Choral Society, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Malcolm Sargent, cond. EMI, recorded 1958

Royal Choral Society, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Malcolm Sargent, cond. Reader's Digest-Chesky, recorded May 11-22, 1965

Part III: Air (bass), "The trumpet shall sound"

The trumpet shall sound,
and the dead shall be raised incorruptible,
and we shall be changed.
For this corruptible must put on incorruption
and this mortal must put on immortality.

-- I Corinthians 15:52-53

Norman Walker, bass; Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Malcolm Sargent, cond. EMI, recorded May 29-June 2, 1947

James Milligan, bass-baritone; Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Malcolm Sargent, cond. EMI, recorded 1958

John Shirley-Quirk, bass-baritone; Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Malcolm Sargent, cond. Reader's Digest-Chesky, recorded May 11-22, 1965


HE WAS A TERRIFIC ORCHESTRAL PARTNER

These are recordings we've already heard, which I thought it would be worth rehearing. It doesn't get much bigger-time than Schnabel and Heifetz -- or, for that matter, much more different kinds of soloist.

BEETHOVEN: Piano Concerto No. 4 in G, Op. 58

Artur Schnabel, piano; London Philharmonic Orchestra, Malcolm Sargent, cond. EMI, recorded Feb. 16, 1933

BRUCH: Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor, Op. 26:
i. Prelude: Allegro moderato

Jascha Heifetz, violin; New Symphony Orchestra of London, Sir Malcolm Sargent, cond. RCA-BMG, recorded May 14 and 16, 1962


AND HE WAS THE GREATEST G-AND-S CONDUCTOR

Granted, I'm probably the only person in the world who thinks so, but even in his early Gilbert and Sullivan recordings, dating from the days when he was musical director of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, there are things going on which are clearly in the music but just don't go on when anybody else is conducting, and in the stereo series he did for EMI this opens up to another whole dimension for the Savoy operas -- a dimension of genuine depth and emotional power, based (I think) on genuine empathy with the characters.

Note for Sunday Classics long-timers: We've heard lots and lots of Sargent G-and-S overtures, but amazingly not, it seems, one of the greatest, Iolanthe. Today we rectify this!

GILBERT and SULLIVAN: Overtures

Iolanthe

The Mikado

The Yeomen of the Guard

Pro Arte Orchestra, Sir Malcolm Sargent, cond. EMI, recorded Apr. 8, 1958 (Iolanthe), May-Aug. 1956 (Mikado), and Dec. 10-14, 1957 (Yeomen)


WE THINK OF HIM AS OH-SO-ENGLISH, BUT HE
SEEMED AT HOME IN MOST ANY KIND OF MUSIC

These are from the 18-CD set pictured atop this post, which Warner Classics issued in 2014. The Moldau is from a recording of Smetana's complete cycle of symphonic poems Má Vlast, which was available for some years on LP on the budget Seraphim label, and held its own against the fine versions that came out of Czechoslovakia.


SMETANA: Má Vlast (My Homeland):
No. 2, Vltava (The Moldau)


Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Malcolm Sargent, cond. EMI, recorded Feb. 26-28, 1964

SIBELIUS: Four Legends from the Kalevala, Op. 22:
ii. The Swan of Tuonela

Günter Lorenz, English horn; Vienna Philharmonic, Sir Malcolm Sargent, cond. EMI, recorded Nov. 16-18, 1961

#