DR. MALCOLM SARGENT CALLED

New Zealand Listener, Volume 13, Issue 313, 22 June 1945, Page 12

DR. MALCOLM SARGENT CALLED

lt Was A Flying Visit

"Th world-famous English conductor, Dr. Malcolm Sargent, arrived in Auckland last/evening on a brief and unexpected visit, He is on his way to Australia and will continue his journey to Sydney by air to-day."

T was Tuesday, June 12, and in The Listener office in Auckland, reading the Herald, I felt very sick indeed. The conductor-in-chief of the ‘Royal Choral Society, a Professor of the Royal College of Music, a member of the BBC Brains Trust, had been in Auckland overnight. He’d be half-way across the Tasman by now and I had missed an interview. It was a gloomy morning. About mid-day a friend at 1YA rang me, "What do you know?" he asked, "There was a frost and Dr, Sargent flew away," I said tartly. "There was a frost, but Dr. Sargent didn’t fly away. Try the Grand Hotel," he said. So it was the old device to keep the crowds away! ; I was lucky. Yes, certainly he could see me. Would I be there about 5.30. At 5.15 I arrived at the Grand Hotel, /Mr. Holland arrived at the same time, so there was quite a crowd in the entrance hail for a few minutes. At 5.25 Dr, Sargent came, no mistaking him. He moved quickly, shook hands quickly, spoke quickly, : "Excuse me one moment. I have to fix a passport." Yes, he had a photograph we could use. I waited in the lounge at the sparsely populated end. Dr. Sargent came quickly .across the room, was stopped mid-way by the pointing middle finger, right hand, of a stranger. ~ ‘Dr. Sargent?" "Yes." "I just wanted to introduce myself. My name’s Sargent, too." "Oh, really? Spelt the same way?"

"Yes. I’ve been wondering if perhaps we're related. Now, my father and his four brothers . . ." It continued for about three minutes, Dr. Sargent occasionally saying "Oh, oh, really?" and "No. Not Suffolk. My family come from Lincolnshire." "Yes, possibly." "Good." "Well, now, if you'll excuse me.. ." He was impeccably courteous. I made a reference to the incident. "Oh, that’s nothing! I’m used to it. One has to be. Just think how much worse it. could be if one were a conductor touring round with Smith for a name!" * * * R. SARGENT has worked at pressure throughout the war years. All the time he was in London he averaged five concerts a week, he said; he had two six weeks visits to Sweden, one to Portugal, a stay in America, and now this tour, at the invitation of the Australian Broadcasting Commission, to conduct concerts in the Australian State capitals. He describes himself as England’s . "Musical Ambassador." Dr. Sargent is by now an experienced | traveller by air. One of his visits to Sweden he made by Mosquito, sitting alone in the bomb rack. He showed me how he sat. "I was cramped up like this in a box the size of a rabbit hutch, all

alone, with my oxygen gear to work myself. It wasn’t pleasant." On the other hand he dismissed the Pacific flight as a pleasant outing. "I could have gone to Australia straight from America when I finished working there, but I had to return to London to make a recording of the whole of The Dream of Gerontius," he said. This recording was made with the Huddersfield ‘Choir .and the Liverpool Philharmonic . Orchestra, and Heddle Nash, Gladys Ripley, Norman Walker,

and Dennis Noble. The work takes two hours to play; the recording; including rehearsals for it, took one week to make. "Do you agree with all the observers who have commented on the extraordinary war hunger for music?" I asked. "Yes. There has been a most extraordinary demand for music in England. Even in the worst time of the ‘blitz there were full Houses at all concerts every night of the week, besides the huge attendances at many newly-organised recitals such as the lunch-hour ones." The Brains Trust is Fun I asked Dr. Sargent if the Brains Trust:-was as much fun as it sounded. Quite as much fun, even more, he assured me. Should he give me an out-' line of the way a session worked? Certainly. Listeners would be most inter ested. "Most people want to know: ‘Is it spontaneous or is it recorded?’ Well, it’s both. It’s spontaneous and at the same time it’s recorded. Every Monday at 1 p.m. the members of the particular Brains Trust for the session meet for lunch at Broadcasting House. Now this is the most enjoyable and interesting part of the whole thing to me-not that it’s an elaborate lunch, it isn’t; it’s a perfectly simple lunch. It gives the new members a chance to get acquainted in

an informal atmosphere and it gives us all a chance to try one another out. We are all on our toes and the repartee is fast and amusing — the public would probably find it highly interesting to listen in. Soon after 2,0’clock we go into the studio and sit round the table with the microphone to have a few test questions, largely for the sake of the new members. Perhaps the engineer comes in to move the microphone slightly or to ask a member to speak more directly into it. We have one strict instruction: no one is to speak unless called by name ‘by the Question-Master. This is so that the public will not have to listen to unidentified and perhaps unfamiliar voices in an atgument. Then comes that dreadful moment when the Question-Master announces that the session will begin in exactly. ten seconds. Dead silence. The Question-Master turns up the paper with the questions-kept secret till now. Then we begin spontaneous answers to surprise questions. And at the same time everything we do--a. laugh, a cough, every sound-goes on to a sound track to be broadcast at the Tuesday and again at the Sunday session." "And is the recording ever cut or censored in any way?" "It could be, but I have never known it to be. Of course one of the main reasons for recording the session is that we can be called together at a time convenient to all of us. It would be impossible to get all the members together always at the broadcast timestwice a week." How to Teach the Piano "And what is the worst question you have ever had to answer?" . "Well, the answer is ridiculous. The. worst question, or rather the one I made my worst attempt at answering was: ‘What is the best way to teach the piano?’ Write a book on it-yes. I’d love to. But answer that question in a nutshell, at the point of the QuestionMaster’s finger, with no time for re-flection-well, I always feel I made a most unsatisfactory job of it. But you should try it some time. Try it any time with friends; appoint someone QuestionMaster and then try to answer any question; the minute it is asked begin to talk and keep on talking sensibly and to the point for a minute or two. It’s harder wee. most people think." ie # NOWING that the British Council had sponsored Dr. Sargent’s wartime visits to Sweden and other countries I asked him what chance there was of similar visits to New Zealandby world-famous conductors, players and even by an ofchestra such as the London Philharmonic. You Offer the Money-They'll Come "You invite the conductor or the ‘artist or the orchestra and offer adequate money. They'll come. And, of course, the British Council will help. I know members of the committee well and I know the Council is réally anxious to help New Zealand. But you have to do the inviting and you have to offer the money. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t have a first-class orchestra permanently in this country." "Calling Dr. Sargent -~ calling "Dr. Sargent-" "Please excuse me a moment." . When he came back he said: "It’s been like that all day, one telephone call after another. Where were we? I

was saying you should have, in a country like New Zealand, which quite obviously has a big public interest in music, and with all these broadcasting stations-22, isn’t it? You should have a first-class permanent orchestra." "Do you mean a home-grown orchestra or an imported one?" "I mean your own orchestra supplemented from outside where necessary. I believe that your strings are good, but that you need wind players-such as oboe, bassoon, horn. Well, now is the time to get them. You have the money. You haven't the players. The obvious thing is to go outside and buy them." "Can England spare them?" "Tt’s not a matter of whether England can spate them. They’ll.come, I assure

you, if you offer them enough money. | And if you can’t get them from England, get them anywhere. There are many refugees waiting for homes, there are gifted people willing to come. You could build up a full orchestra of seventy players or so and arrange it as the BBC does, so that it could be split into two smaller orchestras some of the time, one stationed in one centre, one in another." It was 6.15, and Dr. Sargent had an appointment. I came away with these impressions: Music is booming everywhere; evervone is willing to help; and New Zealand needs only to ask (and offer) to receive.