Words and music

I don't much feel like writing at the moment, but I feel I should. I've been neglecting you (whoever you are). Yesterday I finished compiling the Index of the book and emailed it to the publishers. On Saturday I posted off the corrected proofs. So now (I hope) the real work is over, as far as I'm concerned.


Looking back at the book now, I am genuinely proud of it. There are particular chapters which I think will entertain any reader. For instance, a chapter quoting extensively from Gilbert's letters to his women friends, in which he is charming and witty. For another instance, the chapter detailing the strange circumstances of the writing, performance and banning of the political satire The Happy Land. Gilbert and Sullivan diehards will pore over the chapter on Iolanthe, which quotes from Gilbert's plot books for the opera to an extent never before seen and so is able to show how his ideas developed from crude beginnings to what I consider the perfection of the final result.


I have been occupied in finishing with the book, and that is one reason why I haven't been writing blog posts for the past few days. There have been things I've wanted to write about, but I've lost the impetus for the moment.


But there is one thing I want to say. It's sometimes said that Gilbert's words overwhelm Sullivan's music, that the music is always forced into second position. But this is not always the case. I can point to instances where Gilbert's words are a transparent frame for the music (that is, music and words have the traditional operatic relationship). Take "Oh, Goddess Wise" from Princess Ida, for instance. Read the words, and listen to the song being sung. The words are chosen to serve the needs of the composer:

Oh, goddess wise
That lovest light,
Endow with sight
Their unillumined eyes.
At this my call,
A fervent few
Have come to woo
The rays that from thee fall.

This is as far from the usual idea of Gilbert and Sullivan as it is possible to get. The efforts of the Sullivan experts have quite rightly succeeded in persuading us that there is more to Sullivan than the G&S stereotype of patter songs, but we are still supposed to pretend that Gilbert was simply the patter man we all think we know. Sondheim certainly thinks that's all Gilbert was. But don't let me start on that one again.