Of the three most devoted, knighted Elgarians who were active
during the composer’s life and survived into the 1960s
and beyond, it’s Boult and Barbirolli who have tended
to wear the laurels. Despite his Gerontius recordings,
Sargent has tended to be overlooked. One reason is that he made
no studio recordings of the symphonies. It was only a matter
of time before off-air symphony performances became commercially
available; the recent Second Symphony performance from Bristol
in January 1964 is a case in point and demonstrates, despite
a few rough edges, the importance and essential centrality of
his performance [BBC MM280].
The Enigma variations was another matter in terms of
his standing in the studio marketplace. Decca offered him a
recording in 1945 with the National Symphony Orchestra [Dutton
CDK1203] and then there came this EMI traversal with the Philharmonia
in 1959. Readers may know that other performances have been
issued - the BBC issued a live 1966 performance with the BBC
SO on BBCRD9104 and there must be many more still securely stored
in the vaults.
He was fairly consistent over the years, though detail varied
and perhaps inevitably he grew more expansive as the years passed,
as did Barbirolli, but not necessarily Boult. For example Sargent’s
more measured in this Philharmonia recording in the first two
movements than he had been in 1945. The strings are on top notch
form in Troyte, lashing into their phrases with sure
intent, and they phrase tenderly throughout. The fabled winds
are equally charged. If Sargent now slows slightly for Nimrod
- though he was not one to hang around and Vernon Handley would
doubtless have preferred his way with it to, say, Pierre Monteux’s
- it’s only a relative matter given the briskness of his
1945 approach. He was yet slower still in 1966. I think he was
right to expand B.G.N. which has always seemed to me
to be one of the most moving of the variations, sometimes more
moving than Nimrod in fact. His 1945 speed was relatively
brusque. He takes E.D.U. at a stoical, almost imperial
march tempo, restrained, noble, the organ swelling and the tempo
kept steady, cumulatively powerful, but not as exciting as faster
performances.
The companion work is the same coupling as the LP, the cover
of which is also reproduced, which necessarily makes this CD
short measure. I like the rich cantilena he cultivates in the
Tallis Fantasia, though the spatial separation between
the two string orchestras is not optimum. He’d earlier
recorded the work on 78s with the BBC for HMV. He cultivated
then, and here, sonorous weight, and encourages a richly vibrated
string tone - hopeful, radiant, not especially mystical or interior
or meditative; rather plush and extrovert, in fact. If that’s
how you like your Tallis Fantasia then look no further
for an LP-to-CD recommendation.
Jonathan Woolf
Philharmonia Orchestra/Malcolm Sargent 
