Gilbert and Sullivan: H.M.S. Pinafore

Arthur Sullivan (Composer), Isidore Godfrey (Conductor), New Promenade Orchestra (Orchestra), Darrell Fancourt (Performer), Ella Halman (Performer), Joan Gillingham (Performer), Leonard Osborn (Performer), Leslie Rands (Performer), Martyn Green (Performer), Muriel Harding (Performer), Radley Flynn (Performer), Richard Walker (Performer) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Performer: Darrell Fancourt, Ella Halman, Joan Gillingham, Leonard Osborn, Leslie Rands, et al.
• Orchestra: New Promenade Orchestra
• Conductor: Isidore Godfrey
• Composer: Arthur Sullivan
• Audio CD (October 16, 2001)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Naxos
• ASIN: B00005NUOY
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #102,430 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Act I: Ov - New Promenade Orch/Isidore Godfrey

2. Act I: We Sail The Ocean Blue - The D'Oyly Carte Opr Company

3. Act I: Hail, Men-O'-Wars Men/I'm Called Little Buttercup - Ella Halman

4. Act I: But Tell Me/The Nightingale Sighed For The Moon's Bright Ray - Ella Halman/Leonard Osborn/The D'Oyly Carte Opr Company

5. Act I: A Maiden Fair To See - Leonard Osborn

6. Act I: My Gallant Crew, Good Morning/I Am The Captain Of The Pinafore - Leslie Rands/The D'Oyly Carte Opr Company

7. Act I: Sir, You Are Sad - Ella Halman/Leslie Rands

8. Act I: Sorry Her Lot Who Loves Too Well - Muriel Harding

9. Act I: Over The Bright Blue Sea/Sir Joseph's Barge Is Seen - The D'Oyly Carte Opr Company

10. Act I: Gaily Tripping - The D'Oyly Carte Opr Company

11. Act I: Now Give Three Cheers/I Am The Monarch Of The Sea - Martyn Green/The D'Oyly Carte Opr Company

12. Act I: When I Was A Lad - Martyn Green/The D'Oyly Carte Opr Company

13. Act I: For I Hold That On The Seas - Martyn Green/Joan Gillingham/The D'Oyly Carte Opr Company

14. Act I: A British Tar - Leonard Osborn/The D'Oyly Carte Opr Company

15. Act I: Refrain, Audacious Tar - Muriel Harding/Leonard Osborn

16. Act I: Finale Act I - The D'Oyly Carte Opr Company

17. Act II: Interlude - New Promenade Orch/Isidore Godfrey

18. Act II: Fair Moon, To Thee I Sing - Leslie Rands

19. Act II: Things Are Seldom What They Seem - Ella Halman/Leslie Rands

20. Act II: The Hours Creep On Apace - Muriel Harding

See all 28 tracks on this disc

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars 1948 Pinafore Sails Again--An Excellent Value!, December 13, 2001

By 

Larry Cantrell (Vancouver, BC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Gilbert and Sullivan: H.M.S. Pinafore (Audio CD)

This is the English D'Oyly Carte Company's 1948 go at HMS Pinafore. It was originally recorded in the old FFRR standard, and for its time has quite sumptuous mono sound, although some might find the voices placed a bit too much to the fore. The CD sound is good, only a little compressed by the standards of the DDD-era.

Pinafore is much the shortest of the G&S full-length comic operas. Without dialogue, its 68 minutes of music fit comfortably on a single disk, overture and all.

The value of this set (ignoring the remarkably low price) is the cast, the best that D'Oyly Carte has put on record. Martyn Green, as Sir Joseph Porter, was a fine singer, something his predecessor, Sir Henry Lytton conspicuously was not. He was also a fine comic actor, as opposed to his two immediate successors on records, Peter Pratt and John Reed, who were merely clowns. Leonard Osborne, a more than adequate singer, is surely the best G&S tenor-actor ever recorded. The rest of the cast of singer-actors are in good voice (save for a rather pushed high note from the soprano in "The Hours Creep on Apace".) Their diction is extraordinarily good, particularly considering the fairly brisk pace chosen by Conductor Godfrey.

All D'Oyly Carte recordings are characterized by fine chorus work. On this disk, diction and rhythmic precision are outstanding even by the high standards of that venerable organization. To my ear, however, the chorus sounds a little smaller than those used in later versions, but that might be an artifact of the recording.

The one real weakness of the set is in the slovenly documentation grudgingly supplied by Naxos. Biographies are provided for only three performers and those are jammed with error. No, Dear Naxos, Martyn Green DID NOT play the Mikado in the prewar movie of that comic opera. This slovenliness has been justly savaged by writers on the G&S websites.

All in all--a great performance at a very attractive price.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Flawed, But I Love It, February 10, 2007

By 

Theseus "theseus" (US of A) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Gilbert and Sullivan: H.M.S. Pinafore (Audio CD)

What a curious recording. I love it and I hate it.

Whoever or whatever is to blame, the sound is certainly...vintage. This means that one is forced to work very hard to catch the lyrics. If you're looking for your first *Pinafore*, don't get this one.

However, there's a lot of charm on display here. Martyn Green's Sir Joseph is an utter delight. Here we have an aristocrat who sounds so bored by the proceedings that be barely has the energy to keep up with the tempo. Brilliant. Leslie Rand as the Captain and Darrell Fancourt also distinguish themselves.

The musicality here is, at times, just sloppy. Singers out of step with singers; singers out of step with the orchestra; odd tempi; many a dramatic moment neglected. I felt like they were all required to record the whole thing in 3 hours and didn't have time for retakes.

Yet that is part of the brilliance of this recording. It is a breezy sort of sing-through by cast members who are wholly comfortable with the style of G&S and with their roles. In that way, it probably captures more of mid-century G&S in performance, than a carefully-crafted, lovingly engineered recording.

1.0 out of 5 stars Great performance - terrible mastering, November 14, 2005

By 

J. Kauffman (Haddonfield, NJ USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Gilbert and Sullivan: H.M.S. Pinafore (Audio CD)

Great performance - terrible mastering, November 15, 2005
Reviewer: J. Kauffman (Haddonfield, NJ USA) - See all my reviews

I don't know what Naxos is thinking (or hearing) but yhey are doing a really awful job on their remasterings of the early 50s Gilbert and Sullivan recordings. Thin sounding and cramped - little surface noise but a whole layer of life is gone from the recordings. A comparison with the incomparably better Sounds on CD mastering is telling - the Naxos is cheaper and they sound it - in this case, you get what you pay for.