Sunday Classics postscript: Poor Arthur Sullivan never knew how well he had succeeded as a "serious" composer

GILBERT and SULLIVAN: The Mikado: Act II: Song, Yum-Yum, "The sun whose rays are all ablaze"

In the film Topsy-Turvy (of which I might say I'm not a big fan), Shirley Henderson fake-rehearses, then fake-sings, Yum-Yum's Act II spoken dialogue and song, "The sun whose rays."

YUM-YUM [looking at herself in her mirror]: Yes, I am indeed beautiful! Sometimes I sit and wonder, in my artless Japanese way, why it is that I am so much more attractive than anybody else in the whole world. Can this be vanity? No. Nature is lovel, and rejoices in her loveliness. I am a child of Nature, and take after my mother.
Song
The sun whose rays
are all ablaze
with ever-living glory
does not deny
his majestry;
he scorns to tell a story.
He don't exclaim,
"I blush for shame,
so kindly be indulgent."
But fierce and bold,
in fiery gold,
he glories all effulgent!
    I mean to rule the earth,
    as he the sky.
    We really know our worth,
    the sun and I.
    I mean to rule the earth,
    as he the sky.
    We really know our worth,
    the sun and I.

Observe his flame,
that placid dame,
the moon's Celestial Highness:
There's not a trace
upon her face
of diffidence or shyness.
She borrows light
that, through the night,
mankind may all acclaim her!
And, truth to tell,
she lights up well,
so I, for one, don't blame her!
    Ah, pray make no mistake,
    we are not shy;
    we're very wide awake,
    the moon and I.
    Ah, pray make no mistake,
    we are not shy;
    we're very wide awake,
    the moon and I.

by Ken

I don't want to get into an extended discussion of the above "performance." I grant that it does try to do something with the song (after doing whatever it did with the spoken dialogue, which seems just a way around dealing with its over-the-top giddy content), more in fact than most performances of it I've seen and heard, but when the singer can't sing the song, it doesn't count for much.

It's possible to react as one commenter does:

The sheer fragility in Ms Henderson's performance is heartbreaking and just downright beautiful. Yes, there are more exacting performances of this piece, but none touch the heart the way this one does. Probably one of the most moving scenes in any film.

Or it's possible to suggest that among those "more exacting" performances would be an entire category of ones by singers who can actually sing the piece.

I'm sorry I can't embed the young Valerie Masterson's performance from the 1966 D'Oyly Carte company Mikado film. It isn't acted at all, and as a commenter comments, "She looks like a sexy extra from the original Star Trek series . . . what a hairdo!" But at least you can close your eyes and hear the genius of Arthur Sullivan, lifting a potential cartoon character into the realm of the sublime. (In a moment we're going to hear Masterson sing this extraordinary song even better, in the later D'Oyly Carte audio recording.)

There's a lesson here, which I want to draw in returning to last week's post, "Dance a cachucha! Returning to the Gondoliers Overture." And that lesson is: Contrary to popular impression, the Gilbert and Sullivan operas are hard to perform well -- extremely, and sometimes even excruciatingly hard.

That is, if you actually want to perform them well.

FOR ALL THE TROUBLE IT TOOK ME
TO PRODUCE LAST WEEK'S POST . . .

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Sunday Classics preview: Working back from the "Mikado" and "Yeomen of the Guard" Overtures to "The Gondoliers"

GILBERT and SULLIVAN: The Mikado (1885): Overture

GILBERT and SULLIVAN: The Yeomen of the Guard (1888): Overture

Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, Sir Neville Marriner, cond. Philips, recorded February 1992

by Ken

If you haven't been around Sunday Classics much, you may not be aware that I take my Gilbert and Sullivan right seriously. (See, for starters, the June 2010 post "The Mikado says, 'It's an unjust world, and virtue is triumphant only in theatrical performances.'") I don't think of their run of comic masterpieces, from Trial by Jury (1875) through The Gondoliers (1889), as frothy light entertainments of about a millimeter's depth. Oh, there's plenty of froth; I don't ever want to lose sight of how funny these pieces are, or can be. But even the humor seems to me to come from a very different place, and to work in a very different way, from that imagined by an awful lof ot fans.

I PLAN TO TRY TO EXPLAIN THIS BETTER SUNDAY . . .

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Sunday Classics flashback: We've got leftover Handel "Water Music"

Here's something different: the Air from the Water Music played by the Gateway Brass Quintet (Dan Smith and Robert Souza, trumpets; Cheryl Hoard, horn; Tom Vincent, trombone; Jeff Hoard, tuba), recorded at St. Anthony of Padua, St. Louis, Feb. 21, 2009. I didn't say good, mind you, just different.

by Ken

In last week's Royal Fireworks Music preview, Water Music preview, and main post devoted to both, I wound up with some musical leftovers. Having decided to give attention to the once-standard but now-widely-scorned suites arranged by Sir Hamilton Harty, I wound up with more samples than I used.

Basically we've got two "extra" versions of the Handel-Harty Water Music Suite. In the end, for an up-to-date stereo version, I didn't have to choose between the Szell/LSO recording I used and a rather different but equally lovely one by William Steinberg and the Pittsburgh Symphony, because it turned out that while I'd brought the jewel case for the CD that included the Steinberg performance home, I'd left the disc itself at the office. So we're going to hear that tonight.

Then, for a performance a bit more like the older-fashioned ones closer in spirit to Sir Hamilton's time, I produced my own digital rendering, a hybrid actually, from two LPs: the first four movements from Sir Malcolm Sargent's stereo recording with the Royal Philharmonic, which I had to complete, owing to intractable LP-surface problems, with two movements from Eugene Ormandy's stereo recording with the Philadelphia Orchestra, not of the Harty suite but of his own similar one. And after all that I wound up not using my hybrid creation!

Partly this was because I chose not to attempt a grand defense of the Harty arrangement. Now this certainly isn't the only way I would want to hear the Water Music. In part this is because the arrangement locks in certain performance choices that are totally defensible but not necessarily something one wants to have made part of the basic performing text. In part too this is because much wonderful music is left out -- but then, nobody's figured out a really effective way to present all that music. The Harty suite makes for a lovely presentation of the music that's included, and I would certainly rather hear it this way than in most of what currently pass for fetishistically "authentic" performances that show substantially less understanding of the music. So this week we're going to hear those additional versions of the "arranged" suites.

Plus, we've got a bonus!


TO HEAR OUR HANDEL-HARTY WATER
MUSIC FLASHBACKS, CLICK HERE

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[3/25/2011] Flashback: We've got leftover Handel "Water Music" (continued)

The young Hamilton Harty

Just a reminder: Last week, courtesy of a YouTube poster, we heard Sir Hamilton Harty's 1933 recording of the suite he arranged from Handel's Water Music. Now, as promised, we have the Steinberg-Pittsburgh recording, and my own "suite" of the Sargent and Ormandy Water Music Suite.

HANDEL Water Music Suite
i. Allegro
ii. Air
iii. Boourrée
iv. Hornpipe
v. Andante espressivo
vi. Allegro deciso

arr. Harty
Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, William Steinberg, cond. Capitol/EMI, recorded c1958

Nos. 1-4 , arr. Harty
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Malcolm Sargent, cond. EMI, recorded c late '50s
Nos. 5-6, arr. Ormandy
Philadelphia Orchestra, Eugene Ormandy, cond. Columbia/CBS/Sony, recorded c late '50s


NOW FOR THE PROMISED BONUS: AN
EARLIER ORMANDY WATER MUSIC SUITE

While I was rummaging around online, I came across this lovely digital dub of Ormandy's 1946 78-rpm version of a more compact Water Music Suite (also his own) than the six-movement version he recorded in stereo. I couldn't resist tossing it in.

HANDEL-ORMANDY: Water Music Suite
i. Allegro-Andante-Allegro
ii. Air
iii. Bourrée; Hornpipe
iv. Allegro deciso

Philadelphia Orchestra, Eugene Ormandy, cond. Columbia (U.S.), recorded 1946 (digital transfer by F. Reeder)


IN TOMORROW NIGHT'S PREVIEW --

We're not quite finished with the Water Music, but tomorrow night we'll be focusing on a particular aspect, which we'll carry further in Sunday's main post. Hint: As you listen to tonight's recordings, pay special attention to the horns. [Our eventual Sunday destination: Haydn's Horn Signal Symphony.]


RETURN TO THE BEGINNING OF THE POST

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