... there were premières only a few weeks apart of two new works by British composers: William Walton "Troilus and Cressida" on December 3rd 1954 and Michael Tippett's first opera, "A Midsummer Marriage" on January 27th 1955.... Walton was a slow worker and his opera had been simmering for some time; he was often dissatisfied with what he had written and when I saw him at a first night and asked how it was going he answered, with his usual quiet twinkle: "Not too well, it keeps sounding like "Cav and Pag"! It didn't, of course, and proved to be good romantic stuff. It was entrusted to Sir Malcolm Sargent who had conducted the first performance of "Belshazzar's Feast" and other Walton works. Sargent had not changed since the pre-war days when he had tried his hand at Charpentier's "Louise". He still did not seem well acquainted with the score, he was still an inveterate fiddler and tamperer with other people's works and he still did not relate well to the singers. He always addressed them by the name of their role in the opera: "Troilus" for Richard Lewis and "Pandarus" for Peter Pears and so on. It must have made them feel like mere ciphers and certainly gave offence. Perhaps he never knew their real names! Like the pre-war Italian conductors, he refused to beat unless the orchestra was playing but, whereas in Italian opera it is often a matter of pure recitative, here Sir Malcolm was leaving whole ensembles to fend for themselves without setting them a tempo; he would let them start and then join in with the orchestra. Peter Pears came forward at rehearsal and begged him to give them a beat but he still refused, saying he would feel such a fool, conducting without the orchestra. The murmured acid comments from the pit can be left to the imagination. As for the alterations, they were legion. Every afternoon after the rehearsal all the material (which was full of inaccuracies anyway as it had not been properly checked by the publishers, later we had to make a fresh set,) had to be carried up four flights to the Library were Walton would join me with the score to look through all Sargent's recommendations and make alterations which we then had to transfer to all the parts. Sargent had a particularly aversion to anything written for two harps and was constantly cutting out bits of the second harp part. One day Walton came upstairs looking particularly disgruntled and suddenly burst out: "I'm not making any more alterations. It's my fucking opera and I'm going to write some more for the second harp!" which he proceeded to do and this seemed to have the desired effect, I do not remember many more alterations. Walton knew how to write for the various instruments, it was always grateful to play, however difficult. If there were problems he was always ready to listen to the player's point of view and make adjustments. << less