Master and Master

I've promised my publisher that I will write short articles to go on Facebook relating to Gilbert of Gilbert and Sullivan, but I keep putting off the evil day of actually writing anything. So maybe I should write something here and treat it as a first draft of the Facebook stuff.

It's well known that Gilbert and Sullivan didn't always get on. Mike Leigh's excellent film Topsy-Turvy portrays the strain in the relationship very well: a surface politeness and even a rapport, but a fundamental underlying difference of temperaments and of artistic aims. Sullivan wanted to write operas in which the relationship of composer with librettist was more conventional--that is, the music being the factor of primary importance, and the words being designed to facilitate the expression of emotion through that music. Gilbert, the foremost dramatist of his era, did not wish to become a librettist in that traditional sense, did not wish to take that role, was temperamentally unable to do so.

All this is documented in letters that passed between the two men throughout their joint career. In their first years, each was happy to accept what the other had to offer--Sullivan revelled in Gilbert's exuberant humour and perfectly turned verses, while Gilbert greatly admired Sullivan's ability to turn even what he considered pedestrian lines into something beautiful. As the years passed, however, their artistic ambitions began to diverge. I'm simplifying here, but broadly speaking Sullivan felt he was squandering his talents on the operas, and he wanted to show he could write something bigger and more serious; while Gilbert, who had already written his ambitious serious works which were generally speaking disliked by the public, was now content to write frivolous nonsense which made him rich.

In early 1889 they had written most of their best works, and the most ambitious of these, The Yeomen of the Guard, was still drawing audiences at the Savoy. In January of that year Sullivan met up with Gilbert and explained to him that he wanted to write something bigger and more serious, with the music taking a more prominent position than even in Yeomen. Gilbert seemed to agree to this, but in letters written between the two men in February and March, the problem rose to the surface. Gilbert objected that if they collaborated on a "grand" opera the words would be subservient to the music, so that he would be "swamped." Sullivan responded that this was exactly the position he had found himself in through all their collaborative works, having to keep his music down in order to serve the words. He wrote (12 March 1889): "You say that in a serious opera, you must more or less sacrifice yourself. I say that this is just what I have been doing in all our joint pieces, and, what is more, must continue to do in comic opera to make it successful."

Gilbert's response written on 19 March 1889--and this is why I've gone into the whole tedious matter in the first place--was to express his "amazement and regret" that Sullivan should be "under the astounding impression that you have been effacing yourself during the last twelve years". He added, "You are an adept in your profession, and I am an adept in mine. If we meet, it must be as master and master--not as master and servant."

The quarrel didn't end there, of course--Sullivan bristled at what he considered Gilbert's "abrupt letter", and the two men continued to snipe at each other. But it is probably easier for us to see now, than it was for them then, that Gilbert's verdict was the clincher of the argument.

Sullivan hankered after the composer's traditional position on the operatic stage, in command of his librettist. Gilbert insisted that he could not take the subordinate position. In fact they had created a form of art in which words and music existed in a completely new relationship to each other--and it was Sullivan who had invented it. He was bound not by Gilbert but by his own sense of what his music had to be to suit Gilbert's words. The music served the words but also liberated the words and gave them wings.

In traditional opera, the dictum generally applies that "If it's not worth saying, sing it." Gilbert and Sullivan invented a new kind of song in which words and music are equally important: they are the collaborations of master and master. And this is the template of the classic songs of 20th century Broadway and Tin Pan Alley.

Elsewhere, Gilbert wrote: "I have always held that English is (next to Italian) the very best of all European languages for singing purposes, provided that the song-writer will take into consideration the requirements of the singer & reject words & phrases that involve a hard collocation of consonants & a succession of close vowels." A devotee of opera will laugh at the idea. But the history of popular song in the past century, most of it written in English, suggests that he may have been right.

The Sound and the Fury

I've been busy proofreading the book--a rather pernickety business. I'm coming to the conclusion that maybe it's quite a good book after all. The early chapters are heavy on concentrated fact, because that's where I've found a lot of new material and I want to make sure it all gets published. I'm now checking the final chapters, where Gilbert's story is almost done and I have felt able to relax a little and concentrate on a few enjoyable moments. The chapter on his letters to women will, I think, be particularly enjoyable for the reader, as it shows his most charming and humorous side.

Proofreading the book has also reminded me of one of the more troubling problems I had whilst writing it. Gilbert had a knack of quarrelling quite viciously with everyone he had dealings with. This is well known, and there are plenty of books out there which will provide the details.

I could have filled the book with details of all his squabbles and arguments. But I didn't; partly because there would have been no room for any other aspect of his life and character, and partly because it really distressed me to copy out Gilbert's more aggressive letters. If I could, without feeling guilty, I would ignore that side of his character altogether. But obviously that would be wrong. I need to show Gilbert from all sides, and that includes his least pleasant side. I have included precises of most of his major quarrels in the book, though I have not gone into huge detail as a rule, and I have attempted to provide an explanation of some of the wilder accusations that have been pointed at him (e.g. that he thought he was better than Shakespeare).

There is a danger that I will be perceived as an apologist for Gilbert, glossing over all his faults and presenting him in whitewashed form. Certain writers have levelled this accusation against previous biographers, and I am especially anxious to make sure it isn't levelled against me. But I can only provide an honest portrait of Gilbert according to my own perceptions, and I can't afford to write only according to what other people want me to write. Gilbert, for all his faults, was a literary genius, with all the sensitivity of perception that implies. A certain writer has argued forcibly over many years that Gilbert was a monstrous personality with an all-consuming ego and no redeeming features. I contend that such a personality could not at the same time have had the perceptive nature that is necessary to write the works that Gilbert wrote.

For this reason I have had to look very closely at the most extreme attack on Gilbert that was written during his lifetime--an attack written by the actress Henrietta Hodson, who asserted that he was arrogant, bullying, selfish, and persecuting--and attempt to show that the attack was written from a partial perspective, and that the portrait of Gilbert that she paints is impossible as a portrait of a real human being. Parts are exaggerated. I don't deny that he treated her very badly; but I do say that this was the result of his lack of consideration for others, and his peculiar sense of humour, and his low opinion of Shakespeare, among other things.

Gilbert's aggression was the product of anger against the world that he felt had treated him badly, possibly also of his perception that he was not well liked. He was ambitious, and he was determined to express his own distinctive view of the world. These are some of the qualities that enabled him to reach the top of his profession. Imagination and humour and a perception of the absurd are among the other qualities that took him there.

I don't know if any of this will make sense to someone who doesn't already know Gilbert's life inside out. But, well, let's take a chance. If you don't like this posting, try one of the others.

The Katisha Question

I don't have much to say today. I really should be doing other things which I've been putting off. But I do want to post this link, which will take you to a copy of an extensive essay about Gilbert's portrayal of women in his works. I wrote it about five years ago in an attempt to deal with this very prickly issue honestly and fairly. I read a good deal of feminist criticism in the course of writing it, because it seemed to me that I had to take fair account of attitudes that had sprung up since it first began to be suggested that Gilbert's treatment of middle-aged women in his operas was distasteful and wrong. The essay is called "Not Pretty--Massive; or, Katisha is a Feminist Issue". And that's all I have to say just now.

http://gilbertslemurs.blogspot.com/

The Art of Damning with Faint Praise

I first got to know the Savoy Operas as scripts to be read by borrowing the two-volume Oxford University World's Classics edition (1962-3) from the school library. I devoured them in print more or less in tandem with my listening to the music on cassettes and seeing local amateur productions in Bingley and elsewhere. I have very fond memories of this edition of the libretti, which I haven't read in about twenty-five years. (What a shocking number to have to set down! I think of myself as a young man setting out in life still.)

Well, about a week ago I bought a copy of the two-volume set very cheaply on Ebay, and yesterday the books arrived (see left). The libretti themselves are set out beautifully clearly, and in versions meticulously edited by Bridget D'Oyly Carte. But Volume One also contains an Introduction by Lord David Cecil which, reading it today, I can only call an exercise in literary condescension. After some praise of Gilbert's vein of nonsense and of the operas as satires (or rather, as "skits"), he continues almost by apologising for Oxford having published the libretti as World's Classics at all:

"[The present edition] gives us only one half of the composite author. The less important half too; for Sullivan has lasted better than Gilbert. His tunes are still playedeverywhere while few people read Gilbert's words. This is not wholly Gilbert's fault; there are a hundred people who enjoy a pleasant tune for one who likes verbal wit. But it is also true that Sullivan in his own line was an artist of the first order.... Gilbert does not maintain the same level. On the contrary, unhelped by the charm of Sullivan's tunes, the libretti show up as very unequal. The prose dialogue in particular is often stilted and facetious: Gilbert was one of those who suffered under the delusion that to say a simple thing in long words is to make it laughable. Further, his touch on fantasy is uncertain.... he is liable to degenerate into a mechanical whimsicality.... Along with imaginative weakness goes insensitiveness of taste, especially apparent when he aspires to be graceful and gallant: [quotation from "Take a pair of sparkling eyes] There is a genteel vulgarity about this which is distressing.... Gilbert was... a middle-class Victorian with the characterstic defects of his type. Though prudish, he was not refined. Indeed, his prudery emphasises his lack of refinement...." (pages xii-xiii)

Later, he condemns the libretto of The Yeomen of the Guard as "a muddled failure," on the grounds that "plot and style are at odds with one another throughout the piece." However, he adds, "If The Yeomen of the Guard is Gilbert's worst libretto, it is Sullivan's best score. 'Is Life a Boon?' and 'The Merryman and his Maid' breathe a delicate pathos he touches nowhere else. Here Sullivan supplied Gilbert's deficiencies. He did so elsewhere, too. For, unlike Gilbert, he was a man of imagination and could therefore convey by his tunes the fantasy and feeling that the genre demanded but which were lacking in Gilbert's words. It is Sullivan's music that makes the fairies in Iolanthe fairy-like and the ghosts in Ruddigore eerie and Jack Point's love story poignant." (pages xvi-xvii)

It would be easy here to make the mistake of getting into the whole worthless "Who was better, Gilbert or Sullivan?" routine. The simple fact is that each was, as Gilbert acknowledged, a master in his own sphere, and they met as equals. Lord David Cecil, Eton and Oxford educated though he was, and Professor of English Literature though he also was later on, has written an infuriatingly flabby and vague Introduction which puts down the writer he ought to be celebrating, and ascribes to the music (of which he knew nothing) the long-lasting qualities that he does not wish to find in the words. It is absurd to state, airily or glibly, that Gilbert lacked imagination, when that is one of his overriding qualities. One might argue that Gilbert had too much imagination, in that he wanted his Fairies to contradict the lazy cliche of "fairy-like" behaviour, and he wanted his ghosts to be ordinary and un-ghost-like; what Sullivan's music does is to create magnificent realisations of what fairy music or ghost music ought to sound like according to the conventions. The fault of many of Gilbert's non-Sullivan works is that he hurried ahead into his own peculiar realm and he left his slower audiences behind him.

Lord David Cecil's Introduction to the Savoy Operas is an excellent example of the kind of attitude that has held back our appreciation of Gilbert's works for so long. Whenever Gilbert is given a word of praise, there is always an implicit "but" at the end of the sentence. All writers, all artists are imperfect. If you want, you can find a "but" to say about any great genius. But in Gilbert's case, the "but" must always be expressed (and it always the same two or three hoary old "buts" which get trotted out every time). It is some years since I resolved to emphasise Gilbert's qualities rather than his defects, for sheer propaganda reasons. If you want to attack him, well and good; but why should I hand you the ammunition?

What makes me most angry, looking back at this Introduction, is that Oxford and Lord David Cecil thought it a good way to introduce readers to this magnificent and ground-breaking edition of Gilbert's most polished works.

If you're new to Gilbert, start here

I'm shocked to realise that it's almost a week since my last posting!

It occurred to me that the one or two people who have actually glanced at this blog by accident may be puzzled about what actually I am writing about. Do I need to explain the few basics? Possibly.

W S Gilbert (1836-1911). The greatest English dramatist of his generation. Wrote the words of The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado and H.M.S. Pinafore. If you've seen any of those pieces I imagine you may be left with a vague impression of silliness and you may be wondering, "Why is this blogging guy getting so worked up about someone who wrote silly, frivolous nonsense?" Fair question, my anonymous friend. I suppose my answer comes in two parts, possibly more. Part One would be: "I enjoy silliness, and it's not easy to do well." Part Two: "Anyway, the silliness is just on the surface, it's a disguise. It's there because the original Victorian audiences of Gilbert and Sullivan didn't want to have their ideas challenged about anything, so the challenges had to be done covertly." Part Three (I knew that two parts wouldn't be enough): "Gilbert and Sullivan is only the tip of it. Gilbert was a real, serious writer, and the more you delve into his works, the deeper you find them. His most uncompromising plays are still a little 'tough', because they are so unrelenting: Engaged, Topseyturveydom, a few others. There is something mysterious about the man, too: the surface humour covers a rod of steel."

Even a century after his death, there's still a lot of myth and misunderstanding surrounding Gilbert's life and work. Too much and too closely twined to unpick in a short article. My new biography (Gilbert of Gilbert and Sullivan, The History Press, published May 2o11) is just one attempt to set things right a little.

I feel inadequate to shoulder the responsibility of this sometimes. I'm lazy, and procrasinating, and rather prone to depression. But no one else is doing what I'm doing, and as it turns out I think I've written a pretty good book. Why not order it?

The Proofs of the Pudding

fter, what, sixteen months, seventeen, the contract has been signed, the book has been started, finished, and accepted by The History Press as the fulfilment of my side of the bargain, and today I received the proofs for me to correct. Hallelujah! The story isn't over yet, of course; I can see there are details to adjust, and there is the index to prepare. But the end is in sight. What a relief it will be to see the dam' thing pushed into the world and... and then to wait with ever-increasing anxiety to hear the world's reaction. Oh, is there no end to it all?

I am writing a short essay for the Gilbert Society Journal attempting to explain what I was trying to achieve in the book. I am finding it harder than expected to set it down in words, even though it is clear enough in my head. I think part of the problem is that I don't want to offend my more conventional readers. Because the fact is that, much though I love the Gilbert and Sullivan operas, I feel that in the context of Gilbert's life they form a semi-tragic culmination. That is to say, at the start of his career, say from 1861 to about 1877, he was an enfant terrible, a shocking and somewhat wearisome cynical observer of his society forever seeking to pull down the sacred icons and show them to be clay. Audiences responded sometimes with enthusiasm and sometimes with boos and hisses and disgust. Victorian theatre audiences in general wanted their society's values validated, not questioned. His plays, and his conduct in the theatre, made him lasting enemies. He became accepted as the best and most interesting playwright of his day, but his journey to the top of the tree was a never-ending battle. This first half of his life saw him kicking against the pricks (to use a vivid Biblical phrase) every step of the way.

But then he met Sullivan and D'Oyly Carte, and together they started to create a sequence of comic operas that would be attended and appreciated by all ranks from the lowest to the highest. The Savoy first nights were social occasions for the nobility and the gentry, and they were characterised by polite, genteel enjoyment, rather than raucous immediacy on a knife-edge between cheers and hisses. The operas made Gilbert rich and respected, but from a modern point of view it might seem that something of the real Gilbert died. He was, perhaps, destroyed by success. I exaggerate for effect. However, it doesn't matter, because all this is simply me writing to myself, and no one else will ever read it. Apparently.

I've got till the end of the month to complete and return the proofs. I will have to reverse the habits of a lifetime and be efficient about the business and get them returned on time. There must be no delays.

Keeping Motivated

This one's going to be more about me than Gilbert. Maybe that's good, maybe it's not; I'm not sure. I find it fatally easy to do nothing. It's actually quite fun. But there are so many things that need doing, and I keep putting them off; it's disgusting. All the emails I need to answer, and there are three pieces for the Gilbert Society Journal, plus articles to publicise the book....

(And here I am writing this blog which no one reads! Idiot!)

What I need to do is set myself a schedule.

I think I felt something like this twelve months ago, when I was in the middle of writing the book. There was a period of about one or two months, in the darkest days of winter, when it was a struggle to write even a paragraph a day, and there were days, possibly weeks, when I wrote nothing. I did wonder if it was seasonal depression.

My only comfort is that I did, in the end, finish the book. Today I have had word from The History Press that they are sending me the proofs to check. Slightly frightening, because the book will be set in stone (so to speak) after this stage. I'll just have to keep my nerve, and tell myself that it is essentially a good book. (Which it is.)

Tomorrow. That's the date when I start to become efficient. Yes.