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Sir Harold Malcolm Watts Sargent (April 29, 1895 – October 3, 1967) was a British conductor, organist and composer.
Sargent was born in Ashford in Kent, but was brought up in Stamford, Lincolnshire where he won a scholarship to Stamford School. He worked first as an organist at Melton Mowbray Parish Church, Leicestershire before making his Proms conducting debut at a Promenade concert at the Queen's Hall in London in 1921 with his own piece, Impression on a Windy Day, which he had been commissioned to write for a visit to the De Montfort Hall, Leicester by Sir Henry Wood, but by failing to write the work in sufficient time for Wood to learn, Sargent had to conduct the first performance himself. He soon abandoned composition outright. Sargent founded the Leicester Symphony Orchestra, an amateur orchestra, in 1922.
Early in his career he worked at the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company and with Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes from 1927 to 1930. In 1928 he became conductor of the Royal Choral Society, a post he retained until his death. He was chief conductor of the Proms from 1948 to 1966, and of the BBC Symphony Orchestra from 1950 to 1957. He was knighted in 1947 and performed in a great many numerous English-speaking countries during the postwar years, becoming thereby, as it were, a musical ambassador for (and within) the Commonwealth of Nations.
Sargent tackled a wide range of repertoire (and committed much of it to recording), but was particularly noted for performances of choral pieces. A champion of British music above all, he conducted the premieres of William Walton's oratorio Belshazzar's Feast in 1931 and his opera Troilus and Cressida in 1954. Particularly distinguished as a populariser of classical music, he conducted many concerts for school students.
The Malcolm Sargent Primary School in Stamford is named after Sargent. His nickname "Flash" was possibly due to his impeccable appearance (he was renowned locally for always wearing a white carnation buttonhole, and the carnation is now the symbol for the school) and possibly because of two consecutive recorded broadcasts conducted by him, where it seemed that he had flashed from the first venue to the second. As his first name was Harold, this is an explanation of why he was nicknamed "Flash Harry" after the St Trinians character.
He and fellow conductor Sir Thomas Beecham were renowned for their public antipathy towards each other.
Biography
- Malcolm Sargent a biography by Charles Reid. London, 1968.
- Tunes of Glory. The Life of Malcolm Sargent by Richard Aldous. London 2001.
External links
- Malcolm Sargent (Conductor) – short biography
- Leicester Symphony Orchestra
- Malcolm Sargent Primary School
1895 births | 1967 deaths | BBC Symphony Orchestra | English conductors | Gilbert and Sullivan performers | Recipients of the Royal Philharmonic Society Gold Medal | Natives of Kent | Knights Bachelor
"Malcolm Sargent"