The A Letter from Sir Malcolm Sargent in
Defense of his Performing Edition of "Israel in Egypt" Page
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Handel at 56, in 1741, the year in which he composed Messiah in the house on London's Lower Brook Street a portion of which which soon house the Handel House Museum. This image is the frontispiece to the 1760 John Mainwaring biography.
A Letter from Sir Malcolm Sargent
In Defense of his Performing Edition of
Israel in Egypt
Sir Malcolm Sargent (April 29, 1895 - October 3, 1967)
In the fall of 1963, shortly after I entered Deerfield Academy as a "new boy" sophomore (My classmates will know exactly what that means!), in the school's record collection, I came across Sir Malcolm Sargent's recording of Israel in Egypt. I had been passionate about Handel for more than half of my then 15 years (I was given my first recording of Messiah -- or, more accurately, excerpts therefrom -- when I was seven.), and I already was an antiquarian, and one interested in how music sounded on the instruments that the composers themselves employed. Needless to say, Sir Malcolm's unabashedly "anti-historical" performing edition piqued my curiosity about what Handel really wrote. And in the early '60s, it was not easy for an enthusiastic listener to find out. The Abravanel recording on Westminster was out of print and well night impossible to obtain, and it took me a while to locate a copy of the Walther Goehr recording, which circulated in the United States on a "bargain basement" label.
Nonetheless, with the brassiness that only a precocious brat of a teenager has (And, believe me, I was obnoxious!), I took it upon myself to write Sir Malcolm a letter, in care of EMI, taking him to task and asking him to explain himself. To my never-ending astonishment, he actually answered me! And what a reply it was, and is!
I have always treasured this letter, and, while I did not have the opportunity to meet him, I am grateful that in August, 1966, I had the opportunity to hear him conduct. It was a "Proms" concert in that acoustical nightmare, that Victorian cavern, the Albert Hall, the auditorium that Sir Thomas Beecham once described as "the most tastefully appointed railway station in Europe". I still remember that concert vividly: The Bach Concerto for Two Violins in D Minor, BWV 1043 (Because of the notorious echo, it sounded like a canon at the unison concerto for four violins!), the Beethoven "Eroica" Symphony (Imagine what the echo did to the opening chords!), and the premiere of a composition by Michael Tippet (He had not as yet received his knighthood.) entitled The Visions of St. Augustine (Nightmares was more like it!). As it turned out, it was one of the last Prom concerts that Sir Malcolm conducted. The following year, he was too ill to conduct, and he died on October 3, 1967, aged 72.
Even though I had included a couple of his earliest Handel recordings in the award winning anthology, A Collector's Messiah - Historic Handel Oratorio Recordings, 1898 - 1930, that Seth Winner and I assembled in 1992 for the Koch International Collector's Choice series, I had not thought about Sir Malcolm's letter and I had not revisited his recording of Israel in Egypt in many years, until a few weeks ago, when a close and treasured friend had a copy of the recently released Dutton Laboratories CD reissue of this historic recording sent to me as a gift.
Dutton CDLX 7045
Because, thanks in major part to the patience, influence, and mentorship of Pablo Casals, William H. Scheide, and Rosalyn Tureck, I had long since eschewed the exclusionary attitude of the Performance Practice Puritans, I was thrilled by the serendipitous and fortuitous arrival of a gramophonic old friend. (I confess that, even in my PPP days, I was thrilled by the sheer visceral excitement and charisma of Sir Malcolm's performance.) It proved to be a joyous reunion, one that prompted me, as The HIP Woolly Mammoth, aka, "Woolly", to write an enthusiastic review of the reissued recording, a review which I then posted to BachPariahAndHandelAnathema@yahoogroups.com, HandelAndHisWorld@yahoogroups.com, and a couple of other internet discussion lists. It came as no surprise that this review was ignored by all of the Performance Practice Puritans and HIP-ocrites who subscribe to these lists; after all, to them, if it is not what they consider to be "HIP", it can have no redeeming social value. (It also came as no surprise that those two implacable HIP-ocrites, Brad Leissa and David Vickers, neither of whom cares one whit about the history of Handel's music and its reception as they are embodied on recordings, did not deign to include this remarkable recording among the list of New Releases on the main page at their invaluable but nonetheless unswervingly Performance Practice Puritanical George Frideric Handel Pages.)
For the sake of completeness, here is that essay, which I titled "An Exhilarating Trip down the Handelian Memory Lane":
One of the most influential recordings of my teenage years, one that propelled me further and faster down the Handelian path than almost any other, has recently been reissued, and I would like to call the CD to the attention of those subscribers to the Lists who are not averse to having an open-minded listen to a Handel recording that is definitely, and defiantly, anything but HIP.
I write of Sir Malcolm Sargent's 1955 recording of his, for lack of a better expression, "performing edition" of Israel in Egypt, which has recently been re-published on a single CD, in a very well engineered transfer, by Dutton Laboratories (catalogue no.: CDLX 7045). I vividly recall my first encounter with the performance, on two 12" black discs on the American Angel label, when I was a sophomore in prep school. It was clear from Sir Malcolm's annotations (not, alas, reproduced in the flimsy booklet that
accompanies the reissue, although Lyndon Jenkins's notes provide a succinct and well written description of what all is going on) that his version of the score was substantially abridged, re-orchestrated, and performed by forces quite unlike those that Handel himself had employed.
But at the time (1963-1964), "his" Israel in Egypt was the only readily available option. (The contemporaneous and textually more complete and "accurate" Walter Goehr recording circulated on a "bargain basement" label and was not easy to find. When I finally turned up a copy, I discovered, to my utter chagrin, that the price that I had to pay for a more complete and more accurate musical text was a total lack of visceral and emotional excitement.) I was bowled over by the soul-stirring power of Handel's score and by the magisterial clout of Sargent's performance, but the knowledge that what Sir Malcolm presented was by no means what Handel wrote and performed himself drove me to explore and to search for a recording of what Handel wrote. (Along the way, of course, I learned about "The Lamentations of Joseph", and during my college days at Princeton, when I came to know and be mentored by the unsurpassable Merrill Knapp, I could get an idea of what Israel in Egypt might have sounded like in 1738 only by prefacing the Goehr recording with a German language recording of the "Funeral Anthem for Queen Caroline".)
When the CD reissue of the Sargent recording came my way, I wondered what my reaction would be. I had not heard it in many years, and, in the intervening period, I have revelled in a number of truly fine accounts, accounts of the HIP variety, beginning with the Mackerras recording for DG Archiv.
I found, to my unmitigated delight, that, from the opening tympani roll of his evocative orchestral "Introduction" to the brass buoyed, concluding bars of "The Horse and His Rider", Sir Malcolm Sargent's recording of Israel in Egypt, "corrupt" though his edition may be, had lost not a scintilla of its charisma and excitement.
That Sargent was an unsurpassable choral conductor quickly becomes apparent. (His occasional antagonist and frequent rival, Sir Thomas Beecham, once told a colleague that Sargent "makes the bastards sing like blazes!") The Huddersfield Choral Society is enormous, but the diction, the clarity, and the precision are stunning; the pianos and pianissimos, like those in "The children of Israel sighed", for example, are breathtaking. So is the playing of the Liverpool Philharmonic, with which Sir Malcolm, a sadly and grossly undervalued conductor, had had a long association.
Not surprisingly, Sir Malcolm's re-orchestrations are undeniably and unashamedly "over the top". The secco recitatives (in which the appogiatura convention dares not to rear its hoary head) are rescored for strings, and there is no continuo instrument other than the organ in the choruses. Of course, that means "added accompaniments", with shimmering super-octave doublings in the strings and phalanxes of brass instruments everywhere in those choruses, like "He spake the word", "He gave them hailstones" and, of course, "The Horse and His Rider", in which they would be "appropriate". Many of the solos and duets are suppressed, and "The Lord is a Man of War" is sung by the massed basses of the Huddersfield Choral Society.
The most surprising aspect, however (At least it will be to those members of the "younger generation" who are not familiar with the history of Handel performance practice as it is embodied on recordings.), is the vocal quality of the soloists. Richard Lewis, Monica Sinclair, and Elsie Morison all have that kind of well focussed, trumpet-like timbre that a true "oratorio" soloist needs, and none of them has, to my ears at least, a heavy or wide vibrato. In fact, Monica Sinclair is one of those contraltos who gives the lie to the often made assertion that female contraltos cannot sing early music without weighing it down with wobble. Her accounts of "Their Land brought forth frogs" and "Thou shalt bring them in" still can hold their own against all challengers. I feel the same way about Richard Lewis's "The enemy said, I will pursue". And Elsie Morison lifts the roof off of the hall and really gets the adrenalin to rush with her renditions of the concluding recitatives, beginning with "Sing ye to the Lord".
Of course, the Sargent Israel in Egypt is not a recording that will satisfy those who are unswerving and unbending in their commitment to HIP dogma, but, nonetheless, I hope that those who normally would avoid this performance as though it were dioxin will give it at least a single, open-eared listening. Taken on its own terms, it is an incredible and thrilling experience, and, like it or not, it is an invaluable historical document. This unabashedly anachronistic recording preserves, for all who care to listen and enjoy, the essentials of the performance practice prevalent in Great Britain in the days before the Early Music Revival and pleads the case of those who kept the Handel flame alive throughout a long period when "old" music and "old" instruments interested but the very few, with an eloquence and a passion that only a few other recordings, most notably the 1948 Beecham Messiah (the first uncut recording of the score), equal.
Make no mistake, however: I would not want to be without the more recent and more "authentic" recordings of Israel in Egypt that I have in my collection, but I would not want to be without the Sargent either.
The Sargent Israel in Egypt is truly an immortal performance, a gramophonic treasure!
P. S.: Believe it or not, I was an antiquarian even then, in the mid '60s, and, with the temerity that only a teenager has, I wrote to Sir Malcolm, challenging him on some of the liberties that he takes with the score. He carefully and painstakingly responded to each and every one of my complaints. I guess that now, more than 35 years after I received it, I should dig that letter out, scan it, and post it at my website. {:-{)}
The Post Script, however, did prompt a couple of private exhortations to find the letter and post it. I now heed these requests, and, after having re-read Sir Malcolm's comments, I regret that I did not know of the reissue when it was "in the works". I happily would have made the letter available to Dutton Laboratories to include in the booklet:
I have no doubt that the Performance Practice Puritans and the HIP-ocrites will howl like stuck pigs after they read Sir Malcolm's comments, but, quite frankly, I am sure that he wouldn't give a tinker's dam, and neither do I. As a music historian who have matured much and broadened my horizons immeasurably in the nearly 40 years since I had the temerity to challenge Sir Malcolm, I realize that this letter is now of inestimable value to students of Sir Malcolm in specific, of British conducting in general, and of Handel performance practice and reception history in the mid 20th century.
It is an honor and a privilege to share this letter with you, and, in whatever dimension he now may reside, I fervently hope that Sir Malcolm is able to appreciate not only my gratitude for his extraordinary recording of Israel in Egypt but also for his patience and generosity in writing this letter to me.
Teri Noel Towe
June 21, 2001
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The Statue of Handel that was commissioned from Roubilliac by the promoters who owned the
notorious Vauxhall Gardens, a libertine pleasure garden that was the "Heaven" or
"Studio 54" of its day.
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His Performing Edition of "Israel in Egypt" Page at the Teri Noel Towe
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