Gilbert & Sullivan - The Mikado (Without Spoken Dialogue)

Music by Arthur SULLIVAN (1842-1900)

Words by W.S. GILBERT (1836-1911)

The Mikado (Without Sopken Dialogue)

or The Town of Titipu

Colin Wright (tenor)

Michael Rayner (baritone)

John Reed (baritone)

Valerie Masterson (soprano)

Lyndsie Holland (contralto)

John Broad (bass (vocal))

Kenneth Sandford (baritone)

Pauline Wales (soprano)

Peggy Ann Jones (mezzo-soprano)

D'Oyly Carte Opera Chorus

Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

Royston Nash

Recorded: 1973

Recording Venue: Decca Studios, West Hampstead, London

Arthur Sullivan - Incidental Music

Arthur Sullivan (1842–1900)

Incidental Music

The Merchant of Venice: Masquerade 

Henry VIII

The Sapphire Necklace: Overture

Overure in C, "In Memoriam"

RTE Concert Orchestra

Andrew Penny

Arthur Sullivan - Songs

Arthur SULLIVAN (1842-1900)

Songs

Mary Bevan (soprano) 1

Ben Johnson (tenor) 2

Ashley Riches (bass-baritone) 3

David Owen Norris (piano)

rec. April/May 2016, Potton Hall, Dunwich, Suffolk

Arthur Sullivan - Irish Symphony; Imperial March

Arthur SULLIVAN (1842-1900)

Symphony in E "Irish"

Imperial March

Victoria and Merrie England Ballet Suite No.1

Overture in C (In Memoriam)

BBC Concert Orchestra

Oawin Arwel Hughes

Arthur Sullivan - Daydreams: The Chamber and Instrumental Music

Arthur SULLIVAN (1842-1900)

Daydreams: Chamber and Piano music

String Quartet 1859

Daydreams No.1 (piano) 1867

Daydreams No.2 (piano)

An Idyll (cello and piano) 1865

Allegro Risoluto 1866

Daydreams No.3 (piano)

Daydreams No.4 (piano)

Slowly, Slowly (cello and piano)

Daydreams No.5 (piano)

Daydreams No.6 (piano)

Berceuse (piano fantasia)

Romance for String Quartet

Thoughts No.1 (piano) 1862

Thoughts No.2 (piano) 1862

Twilight (piano) 1868

Duo Concertante Op. 2 (cello and piano)

Yeomans String Quartet:

Robert Yeomans and Anne Bunemann (violins), Louise Lansdown (viola), Gabriel Waite (cello) 

Jamie Walton (cello), Murray McLachlan (piano)

Rec. Recital Room, Chethams School of Music, Manchester, England 2001 DDD Mid price

Victorian Concert Overtures

Victorian Concert Overtures

1 Chevy Chace - Sir George Macfarren (1813-1887)

2 Romeo and Juliet, Op 86 - Henry Hugo Pierson (1815-1873)

3 Macbeth - Sir Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900)

4 Prospero - Frederick Corder (1852-1932)

5 Froissart, Op 19 - Sir Edward Elgar (1857-1934)

6 Overture to an Unwritten Tragedy - Sir Hubert Parry (1848-1918)

7 Britannia 'A Nautical Overture', Op 52 - Sir Alexander Campbell Mackenzie (1847-1935) 

English Northern Philharmonia,

David Lloyd-Jones (conductor)

The Edwardian Gentelman's Songbook- Ballads & Glees

"The Edwardian Gentleman’s Songbook"

HENRY BISHOP: My Pretty Jane.
HATTON: Come Gentle Zephyr.
G SMART: The Squirrel.
STANFORD: Lullaby; A Japanese Lullaby; The Unknown Sea; Fairy Lives; The City Child.
PEARSALL: Waters of Elle.
FREDERICK BRIDGE: Two Snails; The Goslings.
SULLIVAN: Once Again; How Many Hired Servants (from The Prodigal Son)
DIBDIN: Tom Bowling.
B COOKE: Epitaph on a Dormouse.
F H COWEN: The Children’s Garden.
TRAD (arr. various): The Last Rose of Summer; The Snowy Breasted Pearl; Ye Banks and Braes.
James Griffett (tenor)

Pro Cantione Antiqua, directed by Mark Brown
Rec 1980s

The first point to make about this very desirable release is that the Edwardian gentleman of the title must have had old-fashioned tastes. Apart perhaps from the five Stanford songs and maybe Frederick Bridge’s two parody partsongs, the repertoire here is more Victorian (or indeed earlier) than Edwardian. Particularly is this so of the "glees" by Hatton, Smart, Paxton, Pearsall and Cooke, sung with delicious balance and accomplishment by the nine voice Pro Cantione Antiqua. They include such names as Ian Partridge, Timothy Penrose, Charles Brett and Christopher Keyte.

James Griffett, who also belongs to PCA, sings the rest of the tracks. We know him to be a fine interpreter of Stanford on record and these five examples, all new to me, are sung intelligently and with beguiling smoothness and lyricism. Many of his other contributions are songs which were popular in Victorian times and these go well, too.

Cowen’s The Children’s Garden sounds rather like his once-hackneyed The Better Land and is at least as good. The two Sullivan items show Mr Griffett as a devotee of that composer; the excerpt from The Prodigal Son makes one wish for a recording of the complete work. All the items, bar one, perhaps two, are British. The Stephen Foster, again one of his lesser-known songs, and the tangy setting of Ye Banks and Braes, by Maurice Ravel, no less are the exceptions.

The recording is excellent and all in all this is, I repeat, highly recommendable; the insert does not include the words of the song (Mr Griffett’s clear diction makes this less important than it otherwise might be) nor the name of the sympathetic piano accompanist.

Philip L Scowcro