Classical Candor: Gilbert and Sullivan: H.M.S. Pinafore (CD review)

Gilbert and Sullivan: H.M.S. Pinafore (CD review)

John Reed, Jeffrey Skitch, Thomas Round, Donald Adams, Jean Hindmarsh, Gillian Knight; Isidore Godfrey, New Symphony Orchestra of London and the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company. Decca 473 638-2 (2-disc set).

The folks at Decca reissued their famous D'Oyly Carte series of Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas in 2003, and this time they included the original cover art and record labels. The sound in all of them is better than ever, the looks are better than ever, and no one has ever equalled the performances. The recordings include the complete operas and, as far as I can see, the dialogue.

Decca's recording of H.M.S. Pinafore, recorded in 1959, has long been one of my Desert Island favorites, so I found myself more than delighted to listen to it again and again. The performance conveys all of the humorous, deadpan zest this music requires, with singer-actors born to the roles. It is, of course, the story of a poor seaman who falls in love with a Captain's daughter, but they cannot marry because he is low born and she is of the upper classes. The plot allowed the Mr. Gilbert and Mr. Sullivan to poke fun at the British aristocratic caste system of the late nineteenth century as well as lampoon certain character types.

Thomas Round is ideal as the fresh-faced Able Seaman Ralph Rackstraw; John Reed as the pompous Sir Joseph Porter, First Lord of the Admiralty; Jean Hindmarsh as Josephine, the Captain's daughter; Jeffrey Skitch as Captain Corcoran, the commander of the Pinafore; Gillian Knight as Little Buttercup, a "Bumboat Woman"; and Donald Adams as the villainous Dick Deadeye. They and the rest of the cast are a pleasure all the way around, as are Isidore Godfrey's conducting (he was the musical director of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company at the time), the New Symphony Orchestra playing, and the performances of the rest of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company and Chorus. They produce some of the best Gilbert and Sullivan you'll find anywhere at any price.

The sound is still excellent by any standards, too, and remains one of my audiophile choices. Moreover, with this rerelease the Decca engineers appear to have remastered the sonics to even smoother effect. High notes and voice sibilants do not seem as hard-edged as in the earlier, 1989 CD's but closer to what I remember from the old vinyl LP days. Add in a more-flowing treble, a magnificently realistic bass, a wonderfully transparent midrange, and plenty of stage dimensionality, and you get a formidable package. And since this is a vintage Decca operetta, expect to hear the characters' voices and bodies actually moving around the stage. This is no mere vocal recital, but a complete performance with depth and breadth.

Other recordings in Decca's reissued Gilbert and Sullivan series include The Gondoliers (473 632), The Grand Duke and Henry VIII incidental music (473 635), Iolanthe (473 641), Patience (473 647), Princess Ida and Pineapple Poll (473 653), Ruddigore (473 656), The Sorcerer and The Zoo (473 659), Utopia Limited, the Macbeth overture, and Victoria and Merrie England (473 662), and The Yeoman of the Guard and Trial by Jury (473 665); plus, everyone's other favorites, The Mikado (473 644) and The Pirates of Penzance (473 650). These are splendid sets, released as mid-price bargains and hard to resist.

JJP

To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click here:

John J. Puccio, Founder and Contributor

Understand, I'm just an everyday guy reacting to something I love. And I've been doing it for a very long time, my appreciation for classical music starting with the musical excerpts on the Big Jon and Sparkie radio show in the early Fifties and the purchase of my first recording, The 101 Strings Play the Classics, around 1956. In the late Sixties I began teaching high school English and Film Studies as well as becoming interested in hi-fi, my audio ambitions graduating me from a pair of AR-3 speakers to the Fulton J's recommended by The Stereophile's J. Gordon Holt. In the early Seventies, I began writing for a number of audio magazines, including Audio Excellence, Audio Forum, The Boston Audio Society Speaker, The American Record Guide, and from 1976 until 2008, The $ensible Sound, for which I served as Classical Music Editor.

Today, I'm retired from teaching and use a pair of bi-amped VMPS RM40s loudspeakers for my listening. In addition to writing for the Classical Candor blog, I served as the Movie Review Editor for the Web site Movie Metropolis (formerly DVDTown) from 1997-2013. Music and movies. Life couldn't be better.

Karl Nehring, Editor and Contributor

For more than 20 years I was the editor of The $ensible Sound magazine and a regular contributor to both its equipment and recordings review pages. I would not presume to present myself as some sort of expert on music, but I have a deep love for and appreciation of many types of music, "classical" especially, and have listened to thousands of recordings over the years, many of which still line the walls of my listening room (and occasionally spill onto the furniture and floor, much to the chagrin of my long-suffering wife). I have always taken the approach as a reviewer that what I am trying to do is simply to point out to readers that I have come across a recording that I have found of interest, a recording that I think they might appreciate my having pointed out to them. I suppose that sounds a bit simple-minded, but I know I appreciate reading reviews by others that do the same for me — point out recordings that they think I might enjoy.

For readers who might be wondering about what kind of system I am using to do my listening, I should probably point out that I do a LOT of music listening and employ a variety of means to do so in a variety of environments, as I would imagine many music lovers also do. Starting at the more grandiose end of the scale, the system in which I do my most serious listening comprises Marantz CD 6007 and Onkyo CD 7030 CD players, NAD C 658 streaming preamp/DAC, Legacy Audio PowerBloc2 amplifier, and a pair of Legacy Audio Focus SE loudspeakers. I occasionally do some listening through pair of Sennheiser 560S headphones. I miss the excellent ELS Studio sound system in our 2016 Acura RDX (now my wife's daily driver) on which I had ripped more than a hundred favorite CDs to the hard drive, so now when driving my 2022 Accord EX-L Hybrid I stream music from my phone through its adequate but not outstanding factory system. For more casual listening at home when I am not in my listening room, I often stream music through the phone into a Vizio soundbar system that has tolerably nice sound for such a diminutive physical presence. And finally, at the least grandiose end of the scale, I have an Ultimate Ears Wonderboom II Bluetooth speaker for those occasions where I am somewhere by myself without a sound system but in desperate need of a musical fix. I just can’t imagine life without music and I am humbly grateful for the technology that enables us to enjoy it in so many wonderful ways.

William (Bill) Heck, Webmaster and Contributor

Among my early childhood memories are those of listening to my mother playing records (some even 78 rpm ones!) of both classical music and jazz tunes. I suppose that her love of music was transmitted genetically, and my interest was sustained by years of playing in rock bands – until I realized that this was no way to make a living. The interest in classical music was rekindled in grad school when the university FM station serving as background music for studying happened to play the Brahms First Symphony. As the work came to an end, it struck me forcibly that this was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard, and from that point on, I never looked back. This revelation was to the detriment of my studies, as I subsequently spent way too much time simply listening, but music has remained a significant part of my life. These days, although I still can tell a trumpet from a bassoon and a quarter note from a treble clef, I have to admit that I remain a nonexpert. But I do love music in general and classical music in particular, and I enjoy sharing both information and opinions about it.

The audiophile bug bit about the same time that I returned to classical music. I’ve gone through plenty of equipment, brands from Audio Research to Yamaha, and the best of it has opened new audio insights. Along the way, I reviewed components, and occasionally recordings, for The $ensible Sound magazine. Most recently I’ve moved to my “ultimate system” consisting of a BlueSound Node streamer, an ancient Toshiba multi-format disk player serving as a CD transport, Legacy Wavelet II DAC/preamp/crossover, dual Legacy PowerBloc2 amps, and Legacy Signature SE speakers (biamped), all connected with decently made, no-frills cables. With the arrival of CD and higher resolution streaming, that is now the source for most of my listening.

Ryan Ross, Contributor

I started listening to and studying classical music in earnest nearly three decades ago. This interest grew naturally out of my training as a pianist. I am now a musicologist by profession, specializing in British and other symphonic music of the 19th and 20th centuries. My scholarly work has been published in major music journals, as well as in other outlets. Current research focuses include twentieth-century symphonic historiography, and the music of Jean Sibelius, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Malcolm Arnold.

I am honored to contribute writings to Classical Candor. In an age where the classical recording industry is being subjected to such profound pressures and changes, it is more important than ever for those of us steeped in this cultural tradition to continue to foster its love and exposure. I hope that my readers can find value, no matter how modest, in what I offer here.

Bryan Geyer, Technical Analyst

I initially embraced classical music in 1954 when I mistuned my car radio and heard the Heifetz recording of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto. That inspired me to board the new "hi-fi" DIY bandwagon. In 1957 I joined one of the pioneer semiconductor makers and spent the next 32 years marketing transistors and microcircuits to military contractors. Home audio DIY projects remained a personal passion until 1989 when we created our own new photography equipment company. I later (2012) revived my interest in two channel audio when we "downsized" our life and determined that mini-monitors + paired subwoofers were a great way to mate fine music with the space constraints of condo living.

Visitors that view my technical papers on this site may wonder why they appear here, rather than on a site that features audio equipment reviews. My reason is that I tried the latter, and prefer to publish for people who actually want to listen to music; not to equipment. My focus is in describing what's technically beneficial to assure that the sound of the system will accurately replicate the source input signal (i. e. exhibit high accuracy) without inordinate cost and complexity. Conversely, most of the audiophiles of today strive to achieve sound that's euphonic, i.e. be personally satisfying. In essence, audiophiles seek sound that's consistent with their desire; the music is simply a test signal.

Mission Statement

It is the goal of Classical Candor to promote the enjoyment of classical music. Other forms of music come and go--minuets, waltzes, ragtime, blues, jazz, bebop, country-western, rock-'n'-roll, heavy metal, rap, and the rest--but classical music has been around for hundreds of years and will continue to be around for hundreds more. It's no accident that every major city in the world has one or more symphony orchestras.

When I was young, I heard it said that only intellectuals could appreciate classical music, that it required dedicated concentration to appreciate. Nonsense. I'm no intellectual, and I've always loved classical music. Anyone who's ever seen and enjoyed Disney's Fantasia or a Looney Tunes cartoon playing Rossini's William Tell Overture or Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 can attest to the power and joy of classical music, and that's just about everybody.

So, if Classical Candor can expand one's awareness of classical music and bring more joy to one's life, more power to it. It's done its job. --John J. Puccio

Gilbert and Sullivan: H.M.S. Pinafore (CD review)

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"Their Master's Voice" by Michael Sowa