Suzy Klein and "The D'Oyly Carte"

[Master Jacques]

Here is the text of an email I've just sent to Suzy Klein at Essential Classics, following today's programme:

"Dear Suzy,

Thank you for playing the duet from The Gondoliers a few hours ago.

What a pity, though, that (perhaps because this was only "operetta", which it isn't!) you failed to identify the excellent singers, orchestra and conductor involved. Saying this was "The D'Oyly Carte" tells us nothing, as there are of course many D'Oyly Carte recordings from just about every decade since the early 20th century.

Nor is the duet featured - alongside all the other music you played - on Play It Again. How curious.

Please can you provide me with the performers' names? These singers are quite as good - and considerably more popular - than many more fashionable artists, and they deserve better than the anonymity you (accidentally I am sure) bestowed upon them this morning.

This exemplifies a certain institutional disrespect towards sub-operatic theatre music, even of the highest calibre. I don't for one minute suppose that Essential Classics would treat pop or jazz singers with the same carelessness.

All my best thanks,
....."

I fear that this is another example of silly R3 snobbery towards one of our greatest composers. Nor do I think Essential Classics will deign to give me an answer! So are any resident Savoyards able to enlighten me as to who was singing "We're called gondolieri" so effectively this morning? As I say, it has been excluded from the Play It Again listings too, so that doesn't make it easier!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Maybe the one who calls us "snobs" is actually a closet snob?

As I say, it has been excluded from the Play It Again listings too, so that doesn't make it easier!

The "clothes peg" sequence was not on the Play it Again list when I checked earlier. (I don't know what that was about...)

[Stanfordian]

Here is the text of an email I've just sent to Suzy Klein at Essential Classics, following today's programme:

"Dear Suzy,

Thank you for playing the duet from The Gondoliers a few hours ago.

What a pity, though, that (perhaps because this was only "operetta", which it isn't!) you failed to identify the excellent singers, orchestra and conductor involved. Saying this was "The D'Oyly Carte" tells us nothing, as there are of course many D'Oyly Carte recordings from just about every decade since the early 20th century.

Nor is the duet featured - alongside all the other music you played - on Play It Again. How curious.

Please can you provide me with the performers' names? These singers are quite as good - and considerably more popular - than many more fashionable artists, and they deserve better than the anonymity you (accidentally I am sure) bestowed upon them this morning.

This exemplifies a certain institutional disrespect towards sub-operatic theatre music, even of the highest calibre. I don't for one minute suppose that Essential Classics would treat pop or jazz singers with the same carelessness.

All my best thanks,
....."

I fear that this is another example of silly R3 snobbery towards one of our greatest composers. Nor do I think Essential Classics will deign to give me an answer! So are any resident Savoyards able to enlighten me as to who was singing "We're called gondolieri" so effectively this morning? As I say, it has been excluded from the Play It Again listings too, so that doesn't make it easier!

Hello Master Jacques,

You are spot on! This the sort of infuriating approach that has turned me away from R3.

[Padraig]

Touche! Master Jacques.

[Flay]

To be fair, I would have liked to know who the musicians were in the Gran Partita.

Replaying the piece while running the Shazam app I get this:

I used Shazam to discover We're Called Gondolieri, But That's A Vagary by Thomas Round & Alan Styler & The D'Oyly Carte Opera Chorus & The New Symphony Orchestra Of.. https://www.shazam.com/track/5677175...thats-a-vagary

[LMcD]

Surely a sense of spontaneity and listener involvement - all the thrills and spills of live broadcasting - are more important than piffling details such as who's playing or singing whatever it is?

[Master Jacques]

Just to repeat the information I received from Essential Classics's producer (I withdrew my original post when it was pointed out - quite rightly - that it was a breach of BBC copyright to publish it verbatim) the performers for "We're Called Gondolieri" were as follows:

Meston Reid (Marco), Peter Lyon (Guiseppe), D’Oyly Carte Opera Orchestra, c. Sandy Faris (from the issued recording of the "Last Night")

I suggested in my thank-you note to Essential Classics, that where (as here) it had apparently not been possible to establish details of the performers before broadcast, a quick apology to them at the time would be in order, rather than the off-hand insouciance employed by Suzy Klein.

[Flay]

That's interesting. I believe that Shazam reads the digital information to make its connection. Odd that we have differing results.

[Master Jacques]

Flay, you and Shazam are indeed absolutely on the money. Thank you very much, and apologies for the incorrect steer. Having listened again, with my sound turned up higher (!) of that there is no manner of doubt, no possible, probable shadow of doubt, no possible doubt whatever.

I have indeed just had a correction from Essential Classics, who have amended their Play List for yesterday accordingly:

Gilbert & Sullivan
We're Called Gondolieri
Performer: Alan Styler. Performer: Thomas Round. Performer: The D'Oyly Carte Opera Company. Orchestra: New Symphony Orchestra of London. Conductor: Isidore Godfrey. The World Of Gilbert & Sullivan. DECCA. 4300952.

It looks as if we've all got there in the end, with justice done to two of the old company's finest singers: Tom Round of course died late in 2016, at the grand old age of 100. I can tell you (from personal contact) that his emails and wit were shining as brightly as ever until very near the end.

[vinteuil]

... one of our greatest composers

... is, I suppose, a 'point of view'.



.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

(I withdrew my original post when it was pointed out - quite rightly - that it was a breach of BBC copyright to publish it verbatim)

I am surprised to hear this: I thought that private e-Mails were the property of the recipient, not the sender (and that, therefore, you could re-present it as you wished).

There's certainly no mention of e-Mail replies from the BBC coming under BBC copyright on the Beeb's own public summary of such issues:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/helpandfeedback/use-material

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

My bad, as item 7 here makes clear:

https://www.netmanners.com/660/online-copyright-myths/

Which presumably means that I can re-present material sent to me by snailmail, but the same content in an e-Mail remains the sender's property?!

[Master Jacques]

My bad, as item 7 here makes clear:

https://www.netmanners.com/660/online-copyright-myths/

Which presumably means that I can re-present material sent to me by snailmail, but the same content in an e-Mail remains the sender's property?!

A nice point! I wonder also how the new Data Protection Law impacts on what we can and what we can't publish online?

In the case of the producer of Essential Classics, I committed the lazy error of naming the sender and not editing out a personal anecdote, so I felt it was better to simply withdraw the whole posting and present the bare factual content this morning (before it was corrected by Essential Classics, that is.)

As most of us here benefit from anonymity, it seems hardly fair not to extend the same courtesy to BBC/Franchisee correspondents, when they are decent enough to respond to us.

[Master Jacques]

... is, I suppose, a 'point of view'.

Honestly vinteuil I didn't intend that as a provocation, I just take the fact for granted!

I remember that Charles Mackerras, as an impartial Aussie, was always astonished by British "prejudice" (as he saw it) against Sullivan, which he called out whenever he could. For him Sullivan's greatness was axiomatic - I once heard him analyse the first act of Mr Broucek in terms of a waltz-fest along the lines of The Gondoliers!

Americans are equally baffled by our indifference towards Sullivan: I fondly recall once hearing an American academic lecture on Britten, where the eminent professor began by acknowledging that "with the exception of Sullivan, Britten is probably the most important English opera composer". So there we are! Perhaps it's a bit like the way the French used to be dismissive of Poulenc, because he wrote tunes.

It can't help that Sullivan's greatest achievements still get filed under "G". The only other composer who suffers from this is Kurt Weill, who sometimes lurks under "B" for Brecht. I suppose Suzy Klein's non-apologetic nonchalance for not being able to name the performers in yesterday's duet is part of the same problem. You'd think that 120 years almost after Sir Arthur's death, we'd have lost what Malcolm Williamson called our "antimacassar complex". It seems not.

[LeMartinPecheur]

My bad, as item 7 here makes clear:

https://www.netmanners.com/660/online-copyright-myths/

Which presumably means that I can re-present material sent to me by snailmail, but the same content in an e-Mail remains the sender's property?!

I think there's no difference between emails and snail-mails: the copyright always belongs to the writer(*). At least with a snail-mail you do own the paper and the ink, so it's yours to sell in due course if the writer ever becomes famous.

(*)Though if the writer is a BBC employee writing on behalf of the corporation, the copyright is the BBC's. (Same principle applies in any employer/employee relationship: it's not something special about the Beeb.)