Arthur Sullivan - Ballet Music (Andrew Penny)

Information

Composer: Arthur Sullivan

• (01) L'île enchantée
• (16) Thespis

RTÉ Concert Orchestra

Andrew Penny, conductor

Date: 1992 / 2021

Label: Marco Polo / Naxos

https://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item.asp?item_code=8.555180

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Review

A welcome transfer from Marco Polo to Naxos for this enterprising Sullivan coupling that originally appeared in 1992. First heard at Covent Garden, where it was programmed as a divertissement at the end of Bellini’s La Sonnambula, Sullivan’s ballet score L’île enchantée dates from 1864, some three years after the superb incidental music for The Tempest, with which the teenage composer had made such an impression after returning from his studies in Leipzig. Clocking in at nearly 50 minutes, L’île enchantée proves an endearing confection, with echoes of Mendelssohn, Offenbach and Auber. Not long afterwards Sullivan put together an abridged version of the ballet, which was heard at the popular concerts at Crystal Palace. The original manuscript of the full score soon went missing but happily a set of orchestral parts survived, and the work even enjoyed a modern staged revival in June 1990 as part of the Sir Arthur Sullivan Society Festival.

Intriguingly, material from both No 2 (the pretty, clarinet-led ‘Pas de Châles’) and No 12 (‘Galop’) crops up in the reconstruction by Roderick Spencer and Selwyn Tillett of the ballet music from the extravagant opera-pantomime Thespis, or The Gods Grown Old. Written to a deadline of just five weeks (hence the borrowings from earlier compositions) towards the end of 1871 for the Gaiety Theatre on London’s Aldwych, Thespis was in fact Sullivan’s very first collaboration with WS Gilbert. (Within 10 years, Richard D’Oyly Carte’s state-of-the-art Savoy Theatre nearby in the Strand had begun its indelible association with the partnership.) It’s a most agreeable sequence lasting around nine minutes.

Spick-and-span, nicely chipper performances, one and all, from the RTÉ Concert Orchestra under Andrew Penny’s affectionate lead. The truthful sound emanates from Dublin’s National Concert Hall, and there are helpful notes by Tillett.

-- Andrew Achenbach, Gramophone

More reviews:
ClassicsToday  ARTISTIC QUALITY: 9 / SOUND QUALITY: 8

https://www.classical-music.com/reviews/orchestral/sullivan-lile-enchantee-thespis/

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2021/Mar/Sullivan-ballets-8555180.htm

http://www.classical.net/music/recs/reviews/m/mpl23635a.php

https://www.naxos.com/reviews/reviewslist.asp?catalogueid=8.555180&languageid=EN

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Arthur Sullivan (13 May 1842 – 22 November 1900) was an English composer. He is best known for his series of 14 operatic collaborations with the dramatist W. S. Gilbert, including such enduring works as H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado. Sullivan composed 23 operas, 13 major orchestral works, eight choral works and oratorios, two ballets, incidental music to several plays, and numerous hymns and other church pieces, songs, and piano and chamber pieces. The best known of his hymns and songs include "Onward Christian Soldiers" and "The Lost Chord".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Sullivan

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Andrew Penny is an English conductor who was born in Hull, England. He entered the Royal Manchester College of Music in 1971 to study the clarinet with Sidney Fell. Subsequently he studied with Sir Charles Groves and Timothy Reynish as a postgraduate, and also with Sir Edward Downes. Since 1982 Penny has been Musical Director of the Hull Philharmonic Orchestra. He has made over 35 recordings for the Naxos and Marco Polo labels since 1992. Much of his repertoire is of British Music and includes symphonies by Sir Malcolm Arnold and Havergal Brian and film music by Vaughan Williams and Walton.

https://www.naxos.com/person/Andrew_Penny_31809/31809.htm

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