Albert Sammons plays, Hamilton Harty conducts Bruch: Violin Concerto No. 1 in G Minor, op. 26 (1925 Acoustic Recording)
18.09.2009, 02:10
Albert Edward Sammons (23 February 1886 - 24 August 1957) was an English violinist. Apart
from initial lessons from his father, he was virtually self-taught.
Albert Sammons was born in Fulham, London, the
second eldest of four children. His father was a shoemaker and good amateur
violinist. Sammons started to receive some lessons from his father around the
age of seven. His first professional engagement was in the band at the Earls
Court Exhibition in 1898; the conductor was so impressed by the 12-year old
that he made him leader. He left school at this time and became a professional
musician - partly to bring extra income to the household, as his father was a
compulsive gambler.
Sammons's father took both Albert and his
eldest brother Tom to symphony concerts at St James's Hall and Queen's Hall.
The boy began to gain a reputation for his reliability and was engaged by many
London musical establishments, as well as in the 'Hungarian' and 'White
Viennese' bands popular at the time. Sammons also received a few free lessons
from the Eugène Ysaÿe-trained Spanish violinist Alfredo Fernandez. At 16,
relations with his father reached a point where Albert and his brother left
home to stay with friends, only returning when his father walked out to join
the band on an ocean liner and the two brothers were obliged to provide for the
rest of the family.
His first concerto performance was the Mendelssohn
E minor Concerto at the Kursaal Concert Hall in Harrogate in 1906. He married
Laura Tomkins in Middlesbrough on 31 October 1907 (divorced 1920). Around this
time Sammons was recruited to play at musical parties for the upper classes at
their country houses. In 1910, with cellist Warwick Evans, 2nd violin Thomas
Petre and viola player H. Waldo Warner, he formed the London String Quartet. He
was also engaged by Ernesto Bucalossi at the Waldorf Hotel and Wyndham's
Theatre. It was at the Waldorf that Thomas Beecham heard him and in August 1909
offered him the position of sub-leader (soon to be leader) of his orchestra,which later included opera seasons at Covent Garden, and the 1911
Diaghilev season. He also consolidated his solo career by playing the Bruch
Violin Concerto No. 1 with the London Symphony Orchestra at the Queen's Hall in
1910.
Sammons, William Murdoch (piano), Lionel
Tertis (viola) and Lauri Kennedy (cello), founded The Chamber Music Players
in 1921, giving their first private performance on 6 January of that year, and
first public concert at Haverstock Hill, London on 13 January, and going on to
give many concerts at the Wigmore Hall and around the UK.
He mainly appeared in the UK, although he did
lead the Beecham orchestra for a six-week season with the Diaghilev company at
the Kroll Opera House, Berlin, in 1913 and, having played under Pierre Monteux
for the Diaghilev seasons, was invited to lead the orchestra at the Casino de
Dieppe, giving two concerts a day, and extending both his orchestral and
chamber music repertoire.
Sammons was particularly associated with the
Elgar Violin Concerto which he first played on 23 November 1914, and made the
first complete recording of it on 18 March and 10 April 1929 with the New
Queen's Hall Orchestra conducted by Henry Wood, which displays
"wonderfully assured portamenti carried as if on the breath of a great
singer" and "immense structural strength". He estimated that he
played the concerto over a hundred times, including at The Proms. He gave his
last performance of the Elgar on his 60th birthday in 1946, with George Weldon
conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Among other concertos in his repertoire
were those by Beethoven, Brahms, Bruch, and the Mozart G major.
In May 1915 a chance encounter in London with
Frederick Delius led directly to the composition of a violin concerto in which
Sammons probably assisted considerably even to the point of writing some link
passages.On 13 July 1916 Sammons gave the first UK performance of
the Violin Sonata of Claude Debussy, only six weeks after its Paris premiere.
After the end of the First World War, Sammons all but gave up string quartet
and orchestral playing in order to concentrate on a large, regular programme of
solo work and chamber music recitals throughout Britain and Ireland, and later,
broadcasts. He played a part in the rehabilitation of Fritz Kreisler, by
presenting (along with Dame Nellie Melba) a laurel wreath at the Austrian
violinist's first appearance in England after the war. Between May and the
autumn of 1929 Sammons and Tertis carried out around 1,000 string auditions for
the new BBC Symphony Orchestra.
He married Olive Hobday (the daughter of one
of his accompanists) on 5 December 1921. Shortly after, they moved to Bognor
Regis, in the same road as William Murdoch.
During the Second World War, he continued his
busy concert schedule around the UK travelling by train, as well as appearing
at the National Gallery concerts.
From 1946 Sammons spent less time playing and
more teaching. As a teacher, he had worked at the Midland Institute in
Birmingham from the 1920s but from 1939 he taught privately and at the Royal
College of Music. His pupils included Alan Loveday and Hugh Bean. He became a
Fellow (FRCM) in 1944.
He composed many short pieces for violin and
piano, which he included in his recital programmes and recorded. A Cradle
Song of 1915 is dedicated to his second daughter and the Lullaby of
1923 to the third, Colleen. His Phantasy Quartet of 1915 won the Cobbett
Prize. He also made editions of others' works and published books of studies
and exercises.
The onset of Parkinson's disease forced his
retirement from public performance in June 1948. He attended a testimonial
concert at the Royal Albert Hall on 7 December in a wheelchair, and heard a
tribute from Sir Arthur Bliss, with others in the programme from Joseph
Szigeti, Fritz Kreisler and Adrian Boult.
He died at Middleton-on-Sea on 24 August 1957,
having lived in Bognor Regis since 1921.
His violins included a Gofriller (he bought
another, 1696, Gofriller in 1927) and a Nicolas Gagliano. At the Cobbett
competition in February 1923 he played in a 'blind' comparison of a 1731
Stradivarius and a modern instrument by Alfred Vincent. When Sammons sold the
Gofriller in 1951 he gave the new owner a list of all the works he had played
on it.
Premieres:
As leader of the London String Quartet
(1910-1919):
23 March 1914, Ralph Vaughan Williams:
Phantasy Quartet (1912)
4 November 1915, Frank Bridge: String Quartet
No 2
16 June 1916, Sally in our alley &
Cherry Ripe arranged by Bridge
12 June 1917, John Ireland: Trio in one
movement
17 November 1916, Frederick Delius: String
Quartet by (3 movements)
1 February 1919, Delius: String Quartet (4
movements)
26 April 1919, Edward Elgar: String Quartet
and Piano Quintet (private performance)
21 May 1919, Elgar: String Quartet and Piano
Quintet (public performance)
As soloist:
March 1917, Ireland: Violin Sonata No 2
(Sammons and William Murdoch)
21 May 1919, Elgar: Violin Sonata
1 May 1920, Eugene Goosens: Violin Sonata
7 October 1924, Delius: Violin Sonata No 2
(with Murdoch)
20 March 1925 Herbert Howells: Violin Sonata
No 3
2 June 1930, Granville Bantock: Violin Sonata
20 January 1931, Goosens: Violin Sonata No 2
14 July 1933, Guirne Creith: Violin Sonata No
2
26 November 1940, Edmund Rubbra: Violin Sonata
No 1
30 January 1919, Delius: Violin Concerto
19 May 1936, Creith: Violin Concerto (BBC
studio performance)
26 February 1937 Stanley Wilson: Concerto for
Violin and Viola (with Bernard Shore)
10 May 1942, George Dyson: Violin Concerto
(with BBC broadcast)
Recordings:
Albert Sammons made his first recording in
October 1908; his last was made on 16 April 1946 (Edmund Rubbra's 2nd sonata
with Gerald Moore).
Other recordings (with dates) include:
Elgar: Violin Concerto (abridged October 1916,
complete December 1929)
The Hallé is a symphony orchestra based in Manchester,
England. It is the UK's oldest extant symphony orchestra (and the fourth oldest
in the world), supports a choir and a youth orchestra, and releases its
recordings on its own record label, though it has occasionally released
recordings on Angel Records and EMI. Since 1996 the orchestra has been resident
at the Bridgewater Hall.
In May 1857, the
pianist and conductor Charles Hallé set up an orchestra to perform at the
Manchester Arts Treasures Exhibition, and the orchestra performed through
October 1857. Hallé then decided to continue work with this orchestra as a
formal organisation, and the orchestra gave its first concert under those
auspices on 30 January 1858. The orchestra's home for the first part of its
history was the Free Trade Hall. The orchestra was in financial trouble in
1861, when it performed only two concerts.
Hans Richter served as
music director from 1899 to 1911. During his tenure, the orchestra gave the
first performance of the Symphony No. 1 of Sir Edward Elgar.
In 1943, the orchestra
was again in crisis, having diminished in size to 30 players. Over the next 27
years, from 1943 to 1970, the orchestra's next music director, Sir John
Barbirolli, restored the Hallé to national prominence. Together, they made many
recordings, including the first recording of Ralph Vaughan Williams' Symphony
No. 8, of which they also gave the first performance. During Barbirolli's tenure,
one of the most notable orchestra members was concertmaster Martin Milner, who
served in that capacity from 1958 to 1987. Barbirolli regarded Milner as his
"right-hand man" and once wrote in appreciation to him: "You are
the finest leader I have ever had in my fairly long career."
Kent Nagano was
principal conductor of the orchestra from 1992 to 1999. The orchestra moved
from the Free Trade Hall to the Bridgewater Hall in 1996, as its primary
concert venue. During his tenure, Nagano received criticism for his expensive
and ambitious programming, as well as his conducting fees. However, poor
financial management at the orchestra separately contributed to the fiscal
troubles of the orchestra. The orchestra faced major financial problems during
the late 1990s, including a GB£1.3 million deficit in 1998, to the point where
the existence of the orchestra was threatened with loss of funding from the
Arts Council and ultimately bankruptcy.
During 1997, there was
an eight-month period when the orchestra had no executive director. However,
Leslie Robinson then served for two years as chief executive after that period.
Robinson began to implement changes to the orchestra to start to bring under
control the orchestra's financial troubles. These included public fund-raising,
which netted GB£2 million, cutting the number of people on the orchestra board
in half, and reducing the number of musicians in the orchestra from 98 to 80.
Since 1999, the
orchestra's chief executive is John Summers, and he continued Robinson's fiscal
practices to restore greater financial security to the orchestra. In 2001, the
Arts Council awarded the orchestra a GB £3.8 million grant to allow it to pay
off accumulated debts and increase musician salaries, which had been frozen for
4 years.
In September 2000, Sir
Mark Elder, CBE, took up the appointment of the orchestra's music director,
having been appointed to the post in 1999. His concerts with the orchestra have
received consistently positive reviews, and he is generally regarded as having
restored the orchestra to high critical and musical standards. In 2004, Elder
signed a contract to extend his tenure through 2010. In May 2009, the orchestra
announced the further extension of Elder's contract to 2015.
One of the orchestra's
recent ideas was to try to find alternative stage dress to the traditional
"penguin suits", but this idea did not come to fruition. The
orchestra has also begun to issue new CD recordings under its own label.
In March 2006, the
orchestra was forced to cancel a planned tour of the United States because of
the cost and administrative difficulties in obtaining visas for the musicians,
a result of the tougher visa regulations intended to combat potential terrorist
attacks.
The orchestra
appointed its first-ever principal guest conductor, Cristian Mandeal, in 2006.
He served in this post until 2009. In February 2008, the orchestra announced
the appointment of Markus Stenz as its next principal guest conductor, starting
in 2009. Past assistant conductors have included Edward Gardner and Rory
Macdonald. Ewa Strusińska is the current assistant conductor of the orchestra,
as of 2008, the first female conductor named to a UK assistant conductorship.
The current leader of the orchestra is Lyn Fletcher. The orchestra's current
head of artistic planning is Geoffrey Owen.
Notable premieres:
Edward Elgar, Symphony
No. 1 (1908)
Anthony Collins, Threnody
for a Soldier Killed in Action (1945)
William Alwyn,
Symphony No. 1, (1949-1950)
William Alwyn,
Symphony No. 2 (1953)
Ralph Vaughan
Williams, Sinfonia antartica (1953)
Gerald Finzi, Cello
Concerto (1955)
Anthony Milner, Variations
for Orchestra (1959)
Thomas Adès, These
Premises Are Alarmed (1996)
Gustav Mahler Das
Klagende Lied (complete version) (1997)
Graham Fitkin, 'North'
(1998)
Colin Matthews,
'Pluto,' an addition to Holst's The Planets (2000)
Principal
conductors:
1858–1895 Sir Charles
Hallé
1895–1899 Sir Frederic
Cowen
1899–1911 Hans Richter
1912–1914 Michael
Balling
1915–1920 Sir Thomas
Beecham (musical adviser)
1920–1934 Sir Hamilton
Harty
1939–1942 Sir Malcolm
Sargent (conductor-in-chief)
1943–1970 Sir John
Barbirolli
1972–1983 James
Loughran
1983–1992 Stanisław
Skrowaczewski
1992–1999 Kent Nagano
2000–present
Sir Mark Elder
Max Bruch was born
in Cologne on 6th January, 1838, in the same year as Bizet. He studied there
with Ferdinand Hiller and Carl Reinecke. Extended journeys at home and abroad
as a student were followed by a longer stay in Mannheim, where his opera Loreley
was performed in 1863, a work based on a libretto by Geibel and originally
dedicated to Mendelssohn, which brought him to the attention of a wider public.
Bruchs first official appointments were as Kapellmeister, first in Koblenz
(1865-67) and then in Sondershausen (1867-70), followed by a longer stay in
Berlin and a period from 1873 to 1878 in Bonn, when he dedicated himself to
composition. After a short time as director of the Sternscher Sangverein in
Berlin, in 1880 he was appointed conductor of the Liverpool Philharmonic
Orchestra, and he left England in 1883 to become director of the
Orchesterverein in Breslau. In 1891 he moved finally to Berlin and took over
master classes in composition, Respighi being one of his pupils. He retired in
1911 to devote himself to composition, and died in Berlin on 2nd October, 1920.
