Beskrivelse
Few conductors have excited such derision as Malcolm Sargent. Even in his lifetime, ‘Flash Harry’ – the sobriquet by which he was best known- seemed to attract as much attention for his impeccable grooming and his sexual prowess as he did for his enduring musicianship and much begrudged success as a conductor. Sargent’s abiding image, reproduced on the jacket of this brilliant new biography, was that of a Promenade King: the genial monarch who presided over the Albert Hall for almost twenty years in a vivid show of British musical jingoism. One of the prevailing merits of this book is that it disabuses the history of British music of this faulty image and restores perspective to Sargent and his vital role in English musical life. Richard Aldous has written a compelling biography which echoes in its nimble prose Sargent’s own demeanour as a conductor. Aldous has travailed in the archives ( these notably include Sargent’s own papers and major collections at the BBC, EMI and the Public Record Office) to recover the details of the conductor’s extraordinary private and public lives, but he wears this learning lightly. The result is a book which is gracefully written but which nevertheless focuses squarely on Sargent’s significance as an icon of British cultural history.
