PASC110: Impressions of Albert Sammons

In this radio programme, broadcast on the BBC Home Service in late 1957, Boult looks back at the life of one of the greatest British violinists, Albert Sammons, who died on 24th August of that year, through reminiscences and recordings. Sammons had retired from the concert stage a decade earlier through ill health, and thus these recordings date largely from his heyday in the 30's and 40's.

The examples chosen include major English violin concertos, which both Sammons and Boult championed throughout their careers - the Delius concerto was written for Sammons, who performed it with Boult for its première recording. We also hear Sammons alongside another stalwart of the era, the violist Lionel Tertis, in Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante, before exploring the chamber music of Fauré and Rubbra and an arrangement of a Dvorak song.

The programme is presented as broadcast, including opening and closing announcements, as recorded onto a specially made double-sided acetate LP disc, apparently cut by the MSS Recording Company Ltd of Colnbrook, Buckinghamshire, England (typed white paper labels cover the original MSS label, but the writing underneath is just discernable). In restoring this I've dealt with much of the surface noise on the record, though some remains at times, and have endeavoured to 'dust off' Sir Adrian's spoken introductions with some re-equalisation. The musical excerpts remain largely as broadcast, and include two minor dropouts present on the LP copy, though I have tackled some of the nastier sections of the original 78rpm discs used to make the programme.

Sir Adrian Boult

excerpt from biographical notes at Wikipedia

Sir Adrian Cedric Boult CH (8 April 1889 – 22 February 1983) was an English conductor.

Boult was born in Chester and educated at Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford. As a schoolboy, he was introduced to the world of music by a family friend, Frank Schuster, who was a friend of Edward Elgar and introduced the young Boult to the composer around 1905.[1]

He completed his musical education at the Leipzig Conservatory where he learnt to conduct by watching the eminent Hungarian conductor Arthur Nikisch. He sang in choral festivals and at the Leeds Festival of 1913, where he went to watch Nikisch conduct, and made the acquaintance of George Butterworth and other British composers.

During World War I he was employed at the War Office, and whilst there in 1918 planned a series of concerts with the London Symphony Orchestra, which included several important recent British works: Gustav Holst's The Planets, of which he gave the first private performance, A London Symphony by Ralph Vaughan Williams, of which he gave the first performance of the revised version, and Elgar's Symphony No. 2 which had fallen into neglect. Elgar wrote to him and said he felt sure the future of his music was safe in Boult's hands. In this way Boult laid the foundations for a long career as a champion of twentieth century English music. As one example, Vaughan Williams dedicated Job, A Masque for Dancing to Boult in the mid-1930s, several years after the actual première of the work.

Albert Sammons (23 February 1886 – 24 August 1957) was an English violinist.

An extensive article on Sammons' life and career, written by Albert Cooper, was published in The Strad magazine in August 1986, and is reproduced in full at the Cooper Collection website here. This is a short extract from the aforementioned article: