Classical Candor: Sullivan

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Apr 11, 2021

Sullivan: Ballet Music (CD review)

L’Ile Enchantee; Thespis. Andrew Penny, RTE Concert Orchestra. Naxos 8.555180.

By John J. Puccio

Many people today probably only know the British composer Sir Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900) from his collaborations with Sir William S. Gilbert, Sullivan writing the music and Gilbert the lyrics of their many hit light operas. But Sullivan’s work also includes operas, orchestral works, incidental music, songs, piano, and chamber pieces. Among them is the ballet presented here, L’Ile Enchantee (“The Enchanted Isle”), performed by Andrew Penny and Ireland’s RTE Concert Orchestra.

Sullivan wrote L’Ile Enchantee in 1861, and it was among his first orchestral compositions. He intended it as a divertissement, a light entertainment, a diversion, usually used during an interlude in a longer, more-serious work but here used at the end of Vincenzo Bellini’s opera La sonnambula at Covent Garden. The public received the music with acclaim, but the full score was subsequently lost. We may consider Penny’s recording, in which Roderick Spencer and Selwyn Tillett have found and restored some previously lost passages, a world-première event.

The opening Prelude has a serious Mendelssohnian feeling to it. The music continues with a whole parade of light, melodic, and wholly delightful tunes. There’s even a brief Strauss-like waltz involved. The story line of the ballet is negligible, to say the least. A shipwrecked sailor washes ashore on an enchanted island filled with gnomes and fairies (and thus the Mendelssohn reference). He falls for the queen, and the rest is...well, music. I’m surprised this little ballet didn’t catch on the way so much of Sullivan’s other music has. Whatever, Maestro Penny appears to be on top of everything--from the rollicking inner sections to the sweetest, most-gentle ones, and his Irish orchestra seems to be enjoying itself as well.

Accompanying L’Ile Enchantee are some snippets of ballet music from Gilbert and Sullivan’s Thespis (1871), their first collaboration together. However, they never published the piece, and most of it is now lost, except for the fragments of ballet from it we get here.

Producer Murray Khouri made the album at the National Concert Hall, Dublin, Ireland in April 1992. Naxos originally released the disc in their full-priced Marco Polo line but now offer it at a substantially lower price (although if you insist on paying more, you can still find it new on the Marco Polo label). I liked the sound a lot. It’s among the more natural recordings I’ve heard lately, even though Naxos recorded it some thirty years ago (or perhaps because they recorded it so long ago). The recording displays good depth, with more than adequate dynamics and frequency range. And all without a hint of brightness or edge.

JJP

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

Aug 6, 2014

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:

Aug 12, 2011

Gilbert and Sullivan: HMS Pinafore (CD review)

Also, Trial by Jury. George Baker, John Cameron, Richard Lewis, Elsie Morison, Marjorie Thomas, Monica Sinclair. Sir Malcolm Sargent, Pro Arte Orchestra and Glyndebourne Festival Chorus. EMI 50999 0 95087 2 9 (2-disc set).

When you're one of the oldest record companies in the world, you ought to trot out some of your best material for rerelease from time to time. People expect it, especially people who haven't heard of it before or couldn't afford it the first time(s) around. Such is the case with this 2011 two-disc reissue from EMI of Gilbert and Sullivan's HMS Pinafore and Trial by Jury, originally recorded in 1958 and 1960 respectively. They've been around on LP, tape, and CD before, and I suspect we still haven't heard the last of them.

The show horse, naturally, is HMS Pinafore, the comic opera that librettist Sir W.S. Gilbert (1836-1911) and composer Sir Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900) premiered in 1878. It is, of course, the satiric tale of a poor seaman who falls in love with a sea captain's daughter, but they cannot marry because he is low born and she is of the upper classes. The plot allowed the composers to poke fun at the British aristocratic caste system of the late nineteenth century as well as lampoon various character types. Tenor Richard Lewis sings the part of the fresh-faced able seaman Ralph Rackstraw; baritone George Baker is the pompous Rt. Hon. Sir Joseph Porter, KCB (First Lord of the Admiralty); bass Owen Brannigan is the nefarious able seaman Dick Deadeye; baritone John Cameron is the commander of the Pinafore, Captain Corcoran; and soprano Elsie Morison is the captain's daughter, Josephine. They and the rest of the cast are a pleasure as well.

Sir Malcolm Sargent's EMI recording came around at about the same time as Decca's stereo recording with conductor Isidore Godfrey, the New Symphony Orchestra of London, and the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, which, with its zest and enthusiasm, tended to overshadow Sargent's version. Alongside Godfrey's reading, Sargent's interpretation does take the music a tad more seriously, yet it manages to convey most of the humorous, deadpan liveliness the music requires, too. Not that Sargent presents the tunes in any high-handed or weighty style, you understand; he simply presents them as genuinely thoughtful, entertaining melodies, not just lightweight music-hall ditties. In fact, the knock I've heard against Sargent's presentation of the work has sometimes been that he offers it in too operatic, too somber, a manner. Maybe so, at least measured against Godfrey's more rollicking, freewheeling presentation. Nevertheless, while Sargent's reading may not project all the vitality of Godfrey's performance, his rendering still bubbles over with joy and enthusiasm.

The coupling on disc two is Gilbert's and Sullivan's first major success, Trial by Jury, from 1875. It's a brief, tidy piece spoofing the British legal system. Here, Sargent uses essentially the same singers, with the addition of baritone Bernard Turgeon as the foreman of the jury. George Baker is a delight as a wholly corrupt judge, and the entire cast seem to be having a good time. If you've never heard it before, just don't expect another Pinafore. It's good, but it's not that good.

The sound in both operettas, recorded over fifty years ago, defies its age, appearing every bit as good as almost anything recorded today. It has an excellent sense of presence, with a realistic acoustic of moderate breadth and superior depth. The frequency response remains well balanced, the high end sparkling and the bass at least sufficient. The transient response is quick and vital, impact is modest, and voices are perfectly natural. One can understand every word of the soloists and chorus, without their being too bright or too forward. Compared to Decca's Godfrey recording of the same vintage, EMI's sound is a tad more veiled; still, if you didn't directly compare them, you wouldn't notice.

The two EMI discs come housed in a Digipak container, with downloadable synopses and librettos in a PDF format on disc two.

JJP

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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 nearly 30 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 2024 Honda CRV Sport L Hybrid, I stream music from my phone through its adequate but hardly outstanding factory system. For more casual listening at home when I am not in my listening room, I often stream music through a Roku Streambar Pro system (soundbar plus four surround speakers and a 10" sealed subwoofer) that has surprisingly nice sound for such a diminutive physical presence and reasonable price. Finally, at the least grandiose end of the scale, I have an Ultimate Ears Wonderboom II Bluetooth speaker and a pair of Google Pro Earbuds 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 technologies that enable 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