Sir Malcolm Sargent is remembered as a great choral conductor. Many of the older generation can recall him conducting vast choruses singing Handel, Mendelssohn or Coleridge Taylor in the Royal Albert Hall. His reputation as an orchestral conductor is marred by stories of his attitude towards the musicians in orchestras. However his recorded legacy, on this disc mainly with the London Symphony Orchestra, demonstrates a musical intellect at work. If he takes liberties then they are for justifiable musical reasons. The disc starts with a stately Overture to Handel's Messiah and closes with the Pastorale Symphony form the same work. Between these statements are his interpretations of Elgar's Enigma Variations ( a work he conducted often), a suite of dances from the dramatic music of Purcell arranged by Albert Coates, Holst's Perfect Fool Ballet Music and Coleridge Taylor's Othello Suite.
The Enigma Variations and music by Purcell is presented in One Sound The brilliance, clarity and presence of these recordings made by the legendary balance engineer Kenneth Wilkinson spurred the remastering team lead by Simon Heyworth at Super Audio Mastering to reproduce on compact discs a sound which when played through a single loudspeaker either directly in front of the listener or from a corner reflex cabinet will propel the listener into the Kingsway Hall with its live acoustic, and the London Symphony orchestra of the 1950s. It sounds pretty good through two speakers, but the advantage of using a single speaker is that you will hear the original balance without any phase problems or side effects.
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