Sargent recordings

[Barbirollians]

Finally got round to the Icon box of Sargent’s recordings . I think they might have been discussed when it was first released but cannot find it . Possibly, with some trenchant support for Sargent from salymap!

Starts well with a doughty straightforward Eroica . CD 2 has four VPO Rossini overtures that are too sluggish for me . Bring on Toscanini .

[smittims]

I've long thought Sargent is due for reppraisal. Popular with audiences to the point of idolatry during his life, he was always a controversial man who made enemies within the profession and few of his many recordings stayed available for long after his death . For many younger listeners he may not even be a name. The Icon box was a surprising reminder to me of just how wide his repertoire was.

There's no denying he was uneven: the contrast between his Elgar, VW, Holst, Delius and Sibelius, which are generally fine, and his other recordings can be puzzling. I liked that Eroica, but it's interesting that he wasn't invited to record much if any music from the classical era , although he conducted it frequently in concert and certainly regarded himself as an all-round maestro. Perhaps his main shortcoming was a reluctance to conduct new music . He did conduct several VW premieres, but tended to back away when difficult 20th-century music was programmed and Norman del Mar or John Hollingsworth had to be brought in. It was a mistake, I think,to appoint him Chief Conductor, BBC S.O. in succession to Boult. He wasn't really cut out for the job and it did his reputation little good; he was , by the way, second choice anyway. Steuart Wilson wanted Barbirolli.

If you get a chance listen to his 'Desert Island Discs' broadcast. It's a real period piece. No-one talks like that today. And his sleeve-note to his 1957 'Planets' is revealing of the man, I think. I can't imagine anyone writing about Holst or his music like that today.

[mikealdren]

few of his many recordings stayed available for long after his death.

Yes, looking though my database, apart from G&S and the Messiah, just about all of my recordings are accompanying famous soloists. He made a few fine recordings with Heifetz.
As to his BBC days and Desert Island Discs, he certainly sounded very old fashioned (and pompous) by the 1960s.

[Petrushka]

Finally got round to the Icon box of Sargent’s recordings . I think they might have been discussed when it was first released but cannot find it . Possibly, with some trenchant support for Sargent from salymap!

Starts well with a doughty straightforward Eroica . CD 2 has four VPO Rossini overtures that are too sluggish for me . Bring on Toscanini .

Dave Hurwitz recently did a video review on his YouTube channel on that very same Icon box and I think you will be pleasantly surprised at the many positive comments he makes. I half expected one of his anti-British rants ripping the box to pieces, but no, it's a fair and much more positive assessment than I thought it would be.

I don't have much Sargent on my shelves: the 1945 Gerontius, a couple of live BBCSO performances from the 1960s (The Planets and Enigma), Messiah, and an Elgar 2 and a Last Night on BBC Music Mag cover discs. However, I also have a surprisingly fine Smetana Ma Vlast recorded at a time when hardly anyone knew the complete work in this country. I believe it's in that Icon box and I'd recommend a listen.

[oliver sudden]

I have that Icon box but haven’t investigated it enough. I bought it because of the Planets therein and was certainly not disappointed.

[smittims]

Yes, his complete Ma Vlast remained available on HMV Concert Classics for many years. It occupies the final disc of the Icon box. It' certainly good to hear Dave Hurwitz praising Sargent! That says something for the quality of the interpretations. The only serious ommission I felt was his Rachmaninov third symphony which was on 'Music for Pleasure' for many years,a lovely recording. .

[cloughie]

Yes, his complete Ma Vlast remained available on HMV Concert Classics for many years. It occupies the final disc of the Icon box. It' certainly good to hear Dave Hurwitz praising Sargent! That says something for the quality of the interpretations. The only serious ommission I felt was his Rachmaninov third symphony which was on 'Music for Pleasure' for many years,a lovely recording. .

Indeed so. Now only available on CD on Guild, which was digitised from LP from a private collection. Currently listening on Spotify - sounds good!

[gradus]

I thought and still think his Planets recording is terrific but that aside I haven't heard many of his other recordings but will remedy that omission given the positive comments above.

[hmvman]

I've got his "Instruments of the Orchestra" on 78s which I'll have to give a spin again sometime. I don't really like his G&S recordings, finding his tempi a bit leaden, although his "Yeomen" with the D'Oyly Carte is good.

[gradus]

I also have his Everest/WRC Shostakovich sym 9 plus Lt Kije with the LSO. Unlikely Sargent repertoire but another fine recording.

[Barbirollians]

CD 3 is much more fun . The nine numbers from La Boutique Fantasque seem to be a cut above the rather ordinary Bonynge the only other version I have and what a charming work Dohnanyi’s Suite is . I didn’t know it at all. The same applies to Ibert’s Suite elizabethiane which with its pinching of much earlier tunes sounds suitably neo Elizabethan and rather more entertaining than Barbirolli’s all too often repeated Elizabethan Suite.

[rauschwerk]

I am not familiar with most of Sargent's commercial recordings, though I was brought up on The Gondoliers, and bought his Planets in my teens. However, I made a good few off-air tapes, some of which gave me a lot of pleasure for some years. These included RVW 2, 4 and 8, the Brahms St. Antoni Variations and Shostakovich 6 (some rough edges here, including a dodgy solo from Paul Beard). His Everest Shostakovich 9 introduced me to the work, and it was only later that I realised that the second movement was a good deal too slow. I agree about his Dohnanyi Suite.

[Roslynmuse]

I remember a Sargent disc of 'Famous Popular Overtures' on HMV Concert Classics that I used to enjoy (Hebrides, Meistersinger, Silken Ladder, Roman Carnival and Bartered Bride, I think) and a BBC SO Sibelius 2 which was on MfP. The 1950s G and S recordings were a mixed bag - I seem to recall that Ruddigore was a good one, but some of the others had less character than the Decca D'Oyly Carte recordings from the same period (or slightly later). As mentioned above, Sargent recorded Yeomen and Princess Ida with D'Oyly Carte - both very good - and also, some 20- 30 years earlier, highlights from other G and S operettas. The 1931 Pirates was available in the 1970s on MfP but as far as I know has never appeared on CD.

[akiralx]

I also have his Everest/WRC Shostakovich sym 9 plus Lt Kije with the LSO. Unlikely Sargent repertoire but another fine recording.

I recall a poster a while ago saying his Prokofiev Fifth Symphony was the best they ever heard, and maybe it was released on a label like BBC Legends?

[Andrew Slater]

His premiere recording of RVW's Hugh the Drover in 1924, although acoustic and with drastic cuts, still outshines the two modern recordings at times in terms of performance. Apparently he had to stand on a shelf above the orchestra, harnessed to the wall, conducting with his right hand and pushing the singers' heads into the horn at appropriate moments with his left hand. Well worth an audition.

https://rvwsociety.com/hugh-the-drover2/