Another “Sullivan without Gilbert” Naxos Reissue

courtesy of Naxos of America

Readers may recall that, a little less than a year ago, this site reported on the reissue by Naxos of a Marco Polo recording of music for ballet composed by Arthur Sullivan. The album had been produced through Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ), the public service broadcaster based in Dublin, Ireland, with Andrew Penny conducting the RTÉ Concert Orchestra. This coming Friday Naxos will reissue a second album produced under the same circumstances with the same resources, this time presenting works that Sullivan had written as incidental music for stage performances. As is usually the case, Amazon.com is currently taking pre-orders for this reissue.

The album consists of three sets of such incidental music. It begins with a concert suite of music for William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, which includes two choral settings of Shakespeare’s words from the fourth act, both involving witches and spirits. The final set provides music for the fifth act of Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor, augmented with text by Algernon Charles Swinburne. Between these two offerings is a set of choruses for a King Arthur play with texts by J. Comyns Carr. These selections were edited for performance as a choral suite by Wilfred Bendall after Sullivan’s death.

My guess is that this reissue will not draw a flood of enthusiastic listeners. Nevertheless, there are any number of passionate followers of performances of the Sullivan operettas for which W. S. Gilbert supplied the words. Many of those enthusiasts may well have memorized every note that Sullivan ever set for Gilbert. Chances are that at least some of them will be curious about what Sullivan composed without Gilbert and will want to know what else is available beyond the ballet music he had composed. Those avid Sullivan fans will probably be all too happy to add this new album of incidental music to their collections.