Sunday Classics preview: "Ring forth, ye bells" -- Celebrating G&S's "The Sorcerer"

"Ring forth, ye bells": The opening chorus of The Sorcerer is performed pretty darned well by, of all things, a Brazilian company, Núcleo Universitário de Ópera (São Paulo). In this ever-so-English village, we're outside the mansion of Sir Marmaduke Pointdextre ("an elderly Baronet"), whose son Alexis is happily engaged to Aline, the daughter of Lady Sangazure ("a Lady of ancient lineage").

Ring forth, ye bells,
with clarion sound.
Forget your knells,
for joys abound.
Forget your notes
of mournful lay,
and from your throats
pour joy today.

For today young Alexis, young Alexis Pointdextre,
is betrothed to Aline, to Aline Sangazure,
and that pride of his sex is, of his sex is to be next her,
at the feast on the green, on the green, oh be sure!

Ring forth, ye bells &c.

by Ken

How 'bout those Brazilians? Maybe you have to sit through the English and American amateur dreck on YouTube to appreciate them. Here's a more properly English performance, from a 1969 record of G&S choruses.

GILBERT AND SULLIVAN: The Sorcerer:
No. 1, Act I, Opening Chorus, "Ring forth, ye bells"

D'Oyly Carte Opera Chorus, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, James Walker, cond. Decca, recorded 1969

Really what was on my mind this week is the the two wonderful songs of the village vicar, Dr. Daly, from The Sorcerer -- the least-regarded of the ten canonical G&S operas, from Trial by Jury through The Gondoliers, but still a piece that contains lots of extraordinary things. We'll get to Dr. Daly on Sunday, but for tonight I thought we would sample Sullivan's wonderful choral writing, in preparation for making the acquaintance, tomorrow night, of the unlikely Sorcerer himself.

We've jumped the gun with our opening clip. How can we ring up the curtain without hearing the Overture? Actually we've already heard the Sorcerer Overture in the sensational 1966 stereo recording by longtime D'Oyly Carte Opera music director Isidore Godfrey, which as I've mentioned used to be part of my standard "kit" for sampling unfamiliar audio equipment. And we're going to hear that recording again in the click-through. We've got other performances of the Overture scheduled for tomorrow night and Sunday, so for now I thought we'd hear the second-best recording I know, Godfrey's 1953 one, which isn't quite as elegantly played as the 1966 one (with the Royal Philharmonic) and of course isn't as gorgeously recorded, though actually in MP3 form the gap narrows noticeably.

We're going to continue on with an encore performance of the opening chorus, which I hadn't originally intended. But since I dubbed this from LP, it seemed crazy to shut it down after the Overture.

GILBERT AND SULLIVAN: The Sorcerer:
Overture and Opening Chorus, "Ring forth, ye bells"

D'Oyly Carte Opera Chorus, New Symphony Orchestra of London, Isidore Godfrey, cond. Decca, recorded 1953


FOR ANOTHER SORCERER VIDEO CLIP, THE PEERLESS
1966 OVERTURE, AND MORE CHORUSES, CLICK HERE.

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