Sir
Malcolm Sargent
(born
Ashford, Kent
, 29 April 1895; died
London
3 October 1967) was an
English
conductor
,
organist
and
composer
. He was an extremely famous and popular conductor who had a lot of
influence
on music in England during his life. He conducted many choirs, both
amateur
and
professional
, as well as
orchestras
. He was the main conductor of the
Henry Wood Promenade Concerts
from 1948 to 1967. He made the Last Night of the Proms into a very popular and joyful concert which today is enjoyed by millions of people worldwide on
television
. He conducted the music of many British composers, helping them to become known to a wide public.
Sargent was born in 1895 into a working-class family. His father was a
coal
merchant
at
Stamford, Lincolnshire
, who also played the
organ
. Sargent grew up in Stamford and became involved in a lot of amateur music making. He learned a lot about music from singing in church and playing the organ. He took his ARCO organ diploma when he was only 16 and became an organ pupil at
Peterborough Cathedral
. At 18 he got a job as organist at
Melton Mowbray
church. In the same year he got a music
degree
from the University of
Durham
.
After conducting local choirs and orchestras he got the opportunity to conduct his own composition
Impressions on a Windy Day
with
Henry Wood
’s Queen’s Hall Orchestra, first at
Leicester
and then at the Proms in the
Queen's Hall
. Wood encouraged him in his conducting. He started to teach at the
Royal College of Music
and moved to London. He conducted the
Robert Mayer
children’s concerts and the Courtauld-Sargent concerts, a series which was aimed at people who had never been to concerts. He conducted for
Sergei Diaghilev
’s
Ballets Russes
and, in 1928 he became conductor of the
Royal Choral Society
, a job which he kept until his death.
In 1932 he was very ill with
tuberculosis
, but he recovered during the next few years. He often conducted the
London Philharmonic Orchestra
which had been formed in 1932 by
Thomas Beecham
. He did not often conduct opera, but he did conduct at the
Royal Opera House
: in 1936 with
Gustave Charpentier
's opera
Louise
in 1936 and in 1954 the first performance of Walton's
Troilus and Cressida
.
As an orchestra conductor Sargent was not always popular. He made many enemies with a remark he made in 1936 when he said that orchestral musicians should not have a secure “job for life” but should give their “lifeblood with every bar they played”. Sargent had only just recovered from a long illness himself, during which time the musicians had given him support, so they were very annoyed when he said this.
He was very popular in
Australia
and nearly took a job there, but when
World War II
started he decided he should work in his own country. During the war, Sargent conducted the
Halle Orchestra
in
Manchester
(1939-42) and the
Liverpool Philharmonic
(1942-48) and became a popular radio broadcaster with the
BBC
. He helped the British people to keep their spirits up during the war by touring and giving many concerts and not asking for much money. During one concert he was playing
Beethoven
's
Symphony No. 7
when there was an
air raid
. Sargent stopped the orchestra, calmed the audience by saying they were safer inside the hall than they would be outside, and started to conduct again. The orchestra played extremely well that night. In May 1941 Sargent conducted
Elgar
's
Dream of Gerontius
in an afternoon concert in the Queen's Hall. That night the Queen’s Hall was completely destroyed by a
bomb
.
In 1945,
Arturo Toscanini
invited Sargent to conduct the
NBC Symphony Orchestra
. He gave four concerts, in which he included mostly British music.
Sargent was chief conductor of the Proms from 1948 until his death in 1967. In 1950 he followed Sir
Adrian Boult
as conductor of the
BBC Symphony Orchestra
. He held that job until 1957 when he became Chief Guest Conductor. Everywhere that Sargent took the orchestra the audience were wild with excitement. The orchestra became internationally famous.
Sargent was a very popular person at the Proms. He made the Last Night (the last concert of each season) into an exciting celebration in which the audience waved flags and joined together to sing, hum and clap. He conducted music by famous classical composers as well as British music by more recent composers. However, he did not conduct modern experimental music.
During his time at the Proms foreign conductors such as
Carlo Maria Giulini
,
Georg Solti
,
Leopold Stokowski
,
Rudolf Kempe
,
Pierre Boulez
and
Bernard Haitink
were invited to perform. There were also some foreign orchestras.
When the
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
nearly had to come to an end after Beecham's death in 1961, Sargent worked hard to save the orchestra. A lot of the players, who still remembered the remark he made in 1936, started to support him again.
By the mid-1960s Sargent was suffering from
cancer
. He was too ill to conduct the Proms in 1967, but on 16 September, at the Last Night, to everyone’s astonishment, he appeared at the end of the concert to talk to his audience. He gave his
baton
to
Colin Davis
who took over his job. Sargent looked very ill, and died two weeks later.
Sargent received many honours. He was
knighted
in 1947 and received the Royal Philharmonic Society gold medal in 1959. His nickname was “Flash Harry” because he always dressed and behaved in a flashy style. He was often known as “Britain’s
ambassador
of music”, because he often toured all over the world with his orchestras, conducting British music, especially the works of
Elgar
,
Vaughan Williams
,
Holst
and
Walton
. If the professional musicians he worked with did not always like him, his audiences loved him and he was especially fond of the Promenaders. At his memorial service in
Westminster Abbey
the whole of the
nave
was reserved for Promenade Season Ticket holders
[1]
- The New Grove Dictionary of Music & Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie, 1980;
ISBN
1-56159-174-2