Favourite Sargent recordings.

[Ferretfancy]

Chris Newman,

The Sargent Beggar's Opera was used frequently as an early stereo demo at the Audio Fairs, particularly " Let us take the Road" with it's use of depth. These shows were always packed into a London hotel like the Imperial in Russell Square, with the bedrooms used as rather cramped listening rooms. I sometimes miss those times, when Hi-Fi was a really nerdy hobby, and we all competed with friends for the best home set up ( Or should I say lash up ?)
Of course. I was always too impoverished to afford the best available, but it was fun!

[salymap]

I attended one or two of those Audio Fairs at the Russell Square Hotel and also publishers' shows at that big hotel at the east end of the Strand in London. As you say Ferret,everything seemed such fun. I had a friend who actually made a big hole in one wall to get a speaker in the right place. A step too far, I thought.

[remdataram]

It was a Sargent recording that started it all for me.

I hated classical music in my youth. When I was 17 I received a Record token for Christmas (the only one I've ever received). I went off to buy a Zoot Money LP with it and came home with an HMV Concert Classics LP of Sargent conducting Tchaikovsky's 1812, Marche Slave and Sleeping Beauty waltz. Nearly 50 years later I still don't know why I bought that LP, but it changed my life and introduced me to so much pleasure.

I can't play an instrument, nor read a score (so I don't post very often), but I get lost in Beethoven, Schubert, Mahler and many others - I never listen to Zoot Money though!

Thank you Sir Malcolm...

[salymap]

It was a Sargent recording that started it all for me.

I hated classical music in my youth. When I was 17 I received a Record token for Christmas (the only one I've ever received). I went off to buy a Zoot Money LP with it and came home with an HMV Concert Classics LP of Sargent conducting Tchaikovsky's 1812, Marche Slave and Sleeping Beauty waltz. Nearly 50 years later I still don't know why I bought that LP, but it changed my life and introduced me to so much pleasure.

I can't play an instrument, nor read a score (so I don't post very often), but I get lost in Beethoven, Schubert, Mahler and many others - I never listen to Zoot Money though!

Thank you Sir Malcolm...

Don't let not being able to read a score or play an instrument stop you from posting on the MBs rem. Quite a lot of us can't or at least very rusty

[Ferretfancy]

remdataram

I can just about "follow along" with a score, but if I was asked to point out whether it was C sharp or C natural I could only guess! I cheated my way through choir practice at school, because I can "hold a tune" and I expect others did too.
The main thing is the endless growth of enthusiasm and pleasure, as you rightly say,
I started out with a little wind up gramophone that could only play 8" 78s ( Yes, they did exist! ) It was if there was a world there for the taking inside the soundbox or loudspeaker, and I've never lost the joy of it.

Bws.
Ferret

[remdataram]

Salymap and Ferret,

Thank you for your kind comments and encouragement.

As you say, this whole thing (music) is about the joy and pleasure, together with the angst and humility, that we all get.

This mb is an ongoing source of anecdotes and information. My sole complaint is the number of CD's I end up buying after reading many contributions - but then it's a lovely way to go bankrupt!

[Ariosto]

I can just about "follow along" with a score, but if I was asked to point out whether it was C sharp or C natural I could only guess!

So you will be fully qualified to become the next BBCSO chief conductor!!

[Ferretfancy]

Ariosto

I'm not too sure about my talents as a conductor, although I do have a baton, and can wave a mean Capriccio Espagnole. No, my talents lie more on the vocal side, lieder perhaps, or French chansons. In the immortal words of Anna Russell, " No voice, but tremendous artistry ! "

[Don Petter]

Nothing new to contribute here, really, except to say that the three recordings which have come to my mind have been covered:

Holst: Planets, BBCSO
Holst: Beni Mora (on a 10" LP, c/w the Britten Variations, which I tired of rather more rapidly.)
Gay: Beggar's Opera

Like Chris N, I remember 'Let us take the road ...' from the latter being used for stereo demonstrations. Interestingly, the mono LP version was issued by December 1955, to be followed by the Stereosonic tape version in December 1957, but it was not until December 1963 that the stereo LP version was issued.

[Chris Newman]

Sorry, Don (I can see salymap tittering) Beni Mora often comes up as my suggestion for Room 101 threads. And that is with anyone conducting it: even my heroes, Adrian Boult and Charles Mackerras!!

[Don Petter]

Sorry, Don (I can see salymap tittering) Beni Mora often comes up as my suggestion for Room 101 threads. And that is with anyone conducting it: even my heroes, Adrian Boult and Charles Mackerras!!

Chris,

I can fully understand your stance here, so no hard feelings. It is, perhaps, a work of peculiar nature, which is likely to polarise opinion. I'm not that mad on it per se, but the thread was about MS. (And I think there would be other works which would get into my Room 101 ahead of it, Lambert's Rio Grande, for one. )

[EdgeleyRob]

This mb is an ongoing source of anecdotes and information. My sole complaint is the number of CD's I end up buying after reading many contributions - but then it's a lovely way to go bankrupt!

I am not a musician,cannot read music and knew very little about musical form or history before joining this forum. What makes this mb so good is that are so many musically knowledgeable people on here it is an education.
I agree it is a very expensive hobby reading the contributions.

[salymap]

Ah Chris those caravans crossing the desert will haunt you forever. You may yet come to appreciate it.

[Chris Newman]

saly and Don.
NOOOO!!!!!! Please lock me away with Lambert's Rio Grande. Now, I love that.

[Don Petter]

saly and Don.
NOOOO!!!!!! Please lock me away with Lambert's Rio Grande. Now, I love that.

I think what put me off Rio Grande was an earlier incarnation of R3, when, although isolated movements were still taboo, they did tend to get a bee in their bonnet and repeat some works seemingly ad nauseam. I doubt that Suffolkcoastal can go back far enough to confirm my memory, and of course events have now overtaken this mild peccadillo.