Classical> Sullivan, Arthur (Seymour) Classical > by Orchestra / Ensemble
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Advantages: Piratical humour, songs, dance; A great operetta, good to see it re-released Disadvantages: None
“Pirates of Penzance” features many of the familiar characteristics of Gilbertian plot twists. Age and time are hopelessly entangled. Logic is upended and sat rudely upon its end. Everyone loves everybody else in an unrequited fashion that is properly requited(!) at the end – and nobody gets seriously hurt. By the time this operetta opened in London in 1880, Gilbert and Sullivan were taking the world by storm and were reaching the pinnacle of their ... ...of the English comic opera and had made that medium firmly their own. This, the second of the ‘Big Five’, remains after over 120 years one of the most commonly played and is the vehicle for some of England’s finest and most stirring tunes. As well as the opera house, these themes have been heard to issue from the bandstand, the music hall, the military band and the brass band. THE PLOT
The opera opens on a beach in Cornwall. Frederic has just reached ...
Advantages: Full of majestic English themes. A tragi-comedy that was nearly Grand Opera Disadvantages: None
The operetta “Yeomen of the Guard” turned out to be the penultimate major popular collaboration between WS Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan. It came at a time of increasing difficulties in communications between the two musical protagonists and in its way is a departure from what had become their trademark Opera Comique”. The story is a tragic one – a simple jester losing the love of his life to a condemned and then reprieved hero – interspersed by ... ...the initial libretto, it is the only work where one of the cast probably dies at the end (unless you count the hellish departure of John Wellington Wells from “The Sorcerer”). From the musical point of view it was the nearest that Sullivan came to writing “a Grand Opera” (indeed they dropped the term “comic” from their descriptions). It is also run through with patriotic English themes. THE PLOT
The scene is set on the green inside the Tower of ...
Advantages: The final flourish from Britain's best loved Classical duo. Disadvantages: Patchy musically with some pleasant "highs"; rather weak and ponderous libretto.
Let me ask you a couple of questions. What do you know of Schikaneder and Mozart's "Die Zauberflaute"? Can you whistle any of the tunes from Paive and Verdi's "La Traviata"? When was "Orpheus Aux Enfers" by Halevy, Cremieux and Offenbach first performed? What is it that made Gilbert and Sullivan unique in the realm of classical music?
It is of course immediately clear that the three named operas ("The Magic Flute", "Traviata" and "Orpheus in the ... ...the composer; the contribution of the librettist is considered to be of minor secondary importance. It is perhaps astonishing - and a testament to the dominance of his personality and the forcefulness of his position as director - that history has favoured W.S. Gilbert (Librettist) in the pole position of the duo over Arthur Sullivan (Composer). Coming from the twilight years of the partnership "The Grand Duke" was their final work. After its initial ...
Advantages: Complete operetta (musically) with great artists Disadvantages: none
These Naxos re-issues are great and so reasonably priced for anyone who might be wanting to try out some Gilbert and Sullivan before plumping for the complete Decca set recorded during the 50s and 60s. This recording has Martyn Green, Leoard Osborne, Darrell Fancourt, the lovely Margaret Mitchell as Patience and Ella Halman in the contralto role. I am probably of an age that I can remember the end of this D'Oyly Carte era and the beginning of next ...
Advantages: Good recordings of unfamiliar, but rewarding works Disadvantages: None
Karlowicz is a relatively unknown composer whose chief claim to fame was his untimely death in a skiing accident just before the First World War. He left a small collection of works, the later of which (figured in this disc) show a talent that was tragically snuffed out before he could achieve greatness.
The Symphonic Poems featured here reveal a composer adept at interesting orchestral effects (try the sad theme at the start of the Lithuanian Rhapsody, ... ...writing for the lower-toned instruments of the orchestra. Karlowicz has clearly learnt a lot from Richard Strauss, whose shadow fell across much pre-1914 music, but it often lacks the extrovert quality of the Gernman composer's tone poems; as the inlay notes say, there is a 'brooding' quality to much of this music, particularly evident in the middle sections of these works. Another feature of Karlowicz's writing is his tendency to pick himself up ...
Package, to drive, nippy, economical, relaible (*)
