pure pleasure

[fpb]

Those not born in Britain may not know what I mean, but I have just purchased the CDs of two more of Gilbert and Sullivan's operettas - Iolanthe and The gondoliers. They are the peak of comedic music, better, in my view, than the best of Strauss, Offenbach or Lehar. And to my delighted surprise, the versions I found - by chance - in a second-hand shop, happened, in spite of surprisingly good sound, to date from 1927, a generation that could still remember the living tradition of Sir William Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan. There has been, down the years, a tendency to reduce the wonderfully subtle irony of this music to buffoonery, but the artists on this recording, though not necessarily immensely talented, conduct themselves with a dignity that does nothing but enhance the music. And the accents are so interesting - in this day and age, we simply don't know what a real "clipped British accent" is like!