Sargent's Piercing Eyes

Radio Record, 31 July 1936, Page 21

Sargent's Piercing Eyes

"You’re Playing The Wrong Clarinet"

**C\NE fine morning," writes Robert H. Hull, "in the days of long ago, an alert young man looked over my right shoulder and announced briskly that I was playing

with the wrong clarinet. This drama of aesthetic revelation took place during an orchestral rehearsal at the Royal College of Music. Gladly would I have paid the unwelcome inquisitor sixpence, or even a shilling, to go away and leave Me in peace. To the agonized mind of a disgraced __ clarinetist he appearedone blushes co recall the shameful fact-simply an exasperating busybody with black hair, sallow complexion and -unpleasantly piercing eyes. "Impatienitlvy he

awaited, so | imagined, some kind ‘A of action on the part of an idiot VW, ‘who. seemed actually not to know i ene clarinet from another. In ‘\ feverish anxiety to oblige I exchangWV, ed what happened, after all, to have | been the right instrument for one j,\ certainly not prescribed by the composer. Thereafter | piped up meree ee" | e. a-- e

rily for a bar or two until it became manifest to my scandalised neighbour and myself, that the last state was even more excruciating ‘than the first. ‘Meanwhile our untimely visitor

had hastened away to clear up a mess among the strings! His name, I had cause to remember, was Dr. Malcolm Sargent; and it will be readily SS = Se OE

understood that the manner of my introcuction to him seemed to compel more than casual interest in his subsequent car= eer. -SS gg s Site

"Since that distressing incident | have had ample opportunities to realise that my jaundiced view of Dr. Sargent’s personal appearance and natural talents afforded him but scant justice." Dr. Malcolm Sargent arrives in New Zealand early next week to conduct three pee te e SS ee

performances in Wellington, all of ; which will be broadcast. The dates of f the performances are August 6, I] ¥, and..15. A special excursion train } from Auckland will enable North- 4 erners to be present at the perform- Vj ance of "Elijah" in the Wellington |) Town Hall on August 15. a \ , cep