H.M.S. Pinafore, or, The Lass That Loved a Sailor

Notes, Dec, 2004 by Andrew Lamb

W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan. H.M.S. Pinafore, or, The Lass That Loved a Sailor. Edited by Percy M. Young. (The Operas, 3.) New York: Broude Brothers Limited, 2003. [Part A: Music. Frontispiece (facsim. reprod. of stage set); publisher's pref., p. vii; acknowledgments, p. ix-x; contents, p. xi-xii; editorial policies, p. xv-xviii; dramatis personae, instrumentation, 1 p.; score, 310 p.; musical appendices, p. 311-21. Part B: Commentary. Frontispiece (facsim. reprod. of letter from Gilbert to Sullivan); contents, p. vii-viii; introd., p. 1-30; libretto, p. 31-64; crit. apparatus, p. 65-160; appendices (Bab ballads, suppressed passages for Cousin Hebe, early recordings, the Royal Navy in H.M.S. Pinafore), p. 161-94; bibliography, p. 195-201; 8 illustrations throughout. Cloth. ISBN 0-8450-3003-5 (set). $300.]

W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan. H.M.S. Pinafore in Full Score. New edition by Carl Simpson and Ephraim Hammett Jones. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, c2002. [Dramatis personae, contents, 2 p.; pref., p. v-vi; synopsis, p. vii; instrumentation, p. viii; score, 247 p. ISBN 0-486-42201-1. $19.95.]

W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan. H.M.S. Pinafore. Vocal score. New edition by Carl Simpson and Ephraim Hammett Jones; with a new piano reduction by Ephraim Hammett Jones. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, c2002. [Dramatis personae, original cast, 1 p.; contents, p. iv-v; pref., p. vi-viii; synopsis, p. ix-x; instrumentation, p. xii; vocal score, 212 p. ISBN 0-486-42202-X. $12.95.]

W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan. The Mikado in Full Score. New edition by Carl Simpson and Ephraim Hammett Jones. Mineola, NY; Dover Publications, c1999. [Pref., p. v-vii; dramatis personae, original cast, p. ix; synopsis, p. xi-xiii; instrumentation, p. xiv; score, 350 p. ISBN 0-486-40626-1. $19.95.]

W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan. The Mikado. Vocal score. New edition by Carl Simpson and Ephraim Hammett Jones; with a new piano reduction by Ephraim Hammett Jones. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, c2000. [Pref., p. v-viii; dramatis personae, original cast, p. vii; synopsis, p. viii-ix; instrumentation, p. x; vocal score, 245 p. ISBN 0-486-41163-X. $14.95.]

W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan. The Pirates of Penzance in Full Score. New edition by Carl Simpson and Ephraim Hammett Jones. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, c2001. [Pref., p. v-vii; dramatis personae, original cast, p. viii; synopsis, p. ix-x; instrumentation, p. xii; score, 272 p. ISBN 0-486-41891-X. $19.95.]

W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan. The Pirates of Penzance. Vocal score. New edition by Carl Simpson and Ephraim Hammett Jones; with a new piano reduction by Ephraim Hammett Jones. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, c2001. [Pref., p. v-vii; dramatis personae, original cast, p. viii; synopsis, p. ix-x; vocal score, 245 p. ISBN 0-486-41893-6. $17.95.]

Arthur Sullivan. The Chieftain: A Comic Opera in Two Acts. Composed by Sir Arthur Sullivan; written by F. C. Burnand. New performing edition prepared by David Eden and Martin Yates, complete with a new overture composed by Julian Savory; edited by David Ashbridge and Mark Bones. Vocal score. Hull, East Yorks., Eng.: Seresta Music, c1996. [Introd. (Irene Papadimitriou, c1997), p. 4; historical background (Mark Bones), p. 5; cast list, settings, p. 6; synopsis, p. 7; vocal score, p. 8-245; editorial and performing notes, p. 246-49. SER-96011. [pounds sterling]24.95.]

It used to be part of the Gilbert and Sullivan tradition that musical directors were forced to conduct from annotated piano-vocal scores, since only German full scores of H.M.S. Pinafore, as Amor an Bord (Brunswick: Henry Litolff's Verlag, [1883]), and The Mikado (Leipzig: Bosworth & Co., [ca. 1893]) were ever published. As with so much other Gilbert and Sullivan tradition, things have changed. During the 1970s and 1980s, Kalmus issued orchestral scores of the operas compiled from printed parts that were so error prone that they inspired William V. Dorwart to publish through his WVD Press (in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania) corrected conducting scores and orchestral parts (rental only) for almost all the Gilbert and Sullivan series. Elsewhere, critical editions have also been emerging. In 1984, Ernst Eulenburg (London) published a miniature full score of The Gondoliers edited by David Lloyd-Jones, and in 2000, the Oxford University Press issued a critical edition of Ruddigore edited by David Russell Hulme.

This current batch of material here under review exemplifies two further efforts to meet the demand for authentic material. Pride of place must go to the Broude Brothers full score of H.M.S. Pinafore (1878), which represents the first full-length work in a projected complete edition of the thirteen extant Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas whose reluctance to appear in print has exceeded even the reluctance of the policemen of The Pirales of Penzance to leave the stage. This edition was begun as long ago as 1971; but rethinking of the editorial method, together with other commitments of the editors, delayed the appearance of the first volume until 1994. That was a full score of the one-act Trial by Jury (edited by Steven Ledbetter; reviewed by Victor Fell Yellin in Notes 55, no. 3 [March 1999]: 734-35), followed by a vocal score in 1999 (which includes errata for the full score), and then instrumental parts. Now H.M.S. Pinafore sails into view.