Double Bass
It has great, unmatched, flexibility - from the classical Orchestra to Jazz - it can be bowed or plucked - and has the ability to blend smoothly with other instruments while providing the bedrock of the overall sound. But this blending also means that it cannot articulate clearly - the sound is too fuzzy for that. Hopeless for solo work.
Bassoon
Great articulation - and when a bassoon is added to the double bass section the combination is able to reveal the 'corners' in (for example) the basso continuo part of baroque era music. Also makes a very good solo instrument, with a wide range of tonalities. But, on its own, the sound lacks the fullness of the double bass; and the good articulation comes at the price of rather poor blending ability. Also, the bassoon is intrinsically funny - somehow it cannot do tragedy.
Tuba
A strong, round, loud sound - and has the ability to do both smooth legato and to bounce-along as support for marching music and the like. Blends seamlessly with other brass instruments. But draws too much attention to itself when playing with strings and woodwinds - and in small groups tends to make the music sound samey.
Bass Guitar
Not much use for anything 'classical' outside of the pop/ jazz/ folk realm but marvellous and essential in that realm - great for rhythm, and has unexploited potential for supporting church and communal singing.
Bass Saxophone
Big, fat, powerful, well-articulated sound - but even more dominating than a tuba; and I must admit it is really a novelty instrument! When the bass sax is going, its hard to listen to anything else - but it can do terrific jazz solos!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxP0cf1bpTM
The bass saxophone contrasted with the double bass shows that there is no best bass instrument overall - if you can do blending and sweetness, then you can't do articulation or make a good solo instrument; because a strength is also a weakness.
It's a case of horses for courses.
Thursday, April 30, 2026
The Mikado by Gilbert and Sullivan
Why is it that The Mikado is the best of all comic operas or musicals?
That it is indeed the best, is the decision of posterity, of audiences - and is in fact true.
The opera is done by amateur societies all over the world, all the time - always pulls in the audiences, and is always enjoyed; is revived professionally and recorded and filmed again and again - and led to the best British movie of recent years Topsy-Turvy (1999) from which the above photograph of the Three Little Maids is taken.
I know the piece very well, having been in it twice and watched it or listened to it innumerable times.
I wouldn't say it is my absolute personal favourite G&S - perhaps that would be Iolanthe, or Trial by Jury or HMS Pinafore (hard to choose!) - but I acknowledge it as the best.
There is so much that is so good. The comic pieces are probably best known - for instance the Three Little Maids or the Mikado's song ('A more humane Mikado...") - but the general level of the piece is extraordinarily high.
It starts with a trio of top-notch songs: the striking and witty (and very 'Japanese') Men's chorus"If you want to know who we are" is followed by one of the best known tenor songs "A wandering minstrel I" - which is actually three songs, all very good - two bracketed by the other.
Gilbert's lyrics are at a very high level of wit - with ironies coming so thick and fast that it is hard to absorb them.
But if patriotic sentiment is wanted
I've patriotic ballads cut and dried
For where-ere our countries banner may be planted
All other local banners are defied
Our warriors in serried ranks assembled
Never quail - or they conceal it if they do
And I shouldn't be surprised if nations trembled
Before the mighty troops - the troops of Titi-Pu!
Then comes the musically marvellous (although narratively flawed) high baritone song "Our great Mikado" from Pish-Tush (which role I had the honour of failing to perform to its best, a while back).
Then comes Pooh Bah (the jumped-up, corrupt and arrogant 'Lord High Everything Else') who is a relatively 'minor' character in terms of plot, but is one of the great and lasting characters of English literature - and he has just about the best and funniest dialogue of anybody in G&S.
All these tend rather to whizz past the audience - but establish the very high level of the piece as a whole and prepare for the first 'showstopper' of the Little List song from the comic baritone Ko-Ko.
As well as Pish-Tushe's, there are some wonderful and dramatically-effective songs which in any other setting would 'make the show', but here are overshadowed and almost forgotten - "So please you Sir, we much regret" and "The criminal cried" are such gems (aside: the latter has one of the most enjoyable chorus tenor harmony lines I have ever sung).
Gilbert and Sullivan's genius was working so fluently here that such marvels are tossed-off left, right and centre.
There is a lot of high spirits, nonsense and satire all throughout - but what really puts the Mikado into a class of its own is the way that this is combined so naturally with really lovely lyrical sections of music.
Three examples: The love duet 'Were you not to Ko-Ko plighted' - between the tenor Nanki-Poo and soprano Yum-Yum is (properly done) both witty and laugh-aloud funny- but it ends with a suddenly slow two-part harmony section and a wistful little play-out that suddenly but without over-emphasis reveals that there is a real affection between these two characters.
Yum-Yum's solo, "The sun whose rays" is as good a soprano aria, musically speaking, as an English composer has ever written - in particular, the way in which the deft little touches of extra orchestration elevate the second verse and chorus to new heights.
And this top-notch musicality is matched, phrase for phrase, with wonderful lyrics - that begin as a satire on Yum-Yum conceit at her own beauty - following on from the dialogue in which she says - "Sometimes I sit and wonder, in my artless Japanese way, why it is that I am so much more attractive than anybody else in the whole world."
The lyric deserves quotation in full as it moves from teenage arrogance to a transcendent magnificence:
The sun, whose rays
Are all ablaze
With ever-living glory,
Does not deny
His majesty--
He scorns to tell a story.
He won't exclaim,
"I blush for shame,
So kindly be indulgent."
But, fierce and bold,
In fiery gold,
He glories all effulgent.
I mean to rule the earth,
As he the sky--
We really know our worth,
The sun and I.
Observe his flame,
That placid dame,
The moon's Celestial Highness;
There's not a trace
Upon her face
Of diffidence or shyness:
She borrows light
That, through the night,
Mankind may all acclaim her.
And, truth to tell,
She lights up well,
So I, for one, don't blame her.
Ah, pray make no mistake,
We are not shy;
We're very wide awake,
The moon and I.
Are all ablaze
With ever-living glory,
Does not deny
His majesty--
He scorns to tell a story.
He won't exclaim,
"I blush for shame,
So kindly be indulgent."
But, fierce and bold,
In fiery gold,
He glories all effulgent.
I mean to rule the earth,
As he the sky--
We really know our worth,
The sun and I.
Observe his flame,
That placid dame,
The moon's Celestial Highness;
There's not a trace
Upon her face
Of diffidence or shyness:
She borrows light
That, through the night,
Mankind may all acclaim her.
And, truth to tell,
She lights up well,
So I, for one, don't blame her.
Ah, pray make no mistake,
We are not shy;
We're very wide awake,
The moon and I.
The third example occurs in the finale of Act 1 when the genuinely nasty villainess Katisha comes on stage to expose the true identity of Nanki-Poo and claim him as her betrothed. Her interruption is swept aside by a cheerful song, chorus and dance" For he's going to marry Yum-Yum", which unexpectedly winds-down into a freeze of all on stage except Katisha, who sings a short and lovely melody "The hour of gladness" describing her desolate state of loneliness - before the stage un-freezes and she recommences her nasty work.
The hour of gladness
Is dead and gone;
In silent sadness
I live alone.
The hope I cherished
All lifeless lies,
And all has perished,
All has perished,
Save love, which never dies;
Which never, never dies.
This is unsurpassed theatrical genius.
Jimmy Shepherd - Cornet virtuoso
I am not knowledgeable about the English Brass Band tradition, but I like it when I come across it - especially pieces featuring the cornet or euphonium - instruments which do not occur in the modern symphony orchestra (although cornets were apparently used in Victorian English symphony orchestras instead of trumpets).
To focus on the cornet - it is like a trumpet in appearance, length, and basic pitch; but has a deeper mouthpiece and a conical bore (widening from the mouthpiece to the bell) which gives it greater sweetness of tone, and flexibility than a trumpet - at the cost of less sheer ringing brightness.
Early jazzmen such as Bix Beiderbecke and Louis Armstrong initially played the cornet but later switched to trumpet - which I personally regard as a step down into a more showily virtuoso style of soloing, characterized by extreme loud high notes (which the trumpet does better than the cornet).
The euphonium is the cello equivalent in a brass band and is like a smaller tuba - it has similar mellowness to the cello, but also a remarkable agility.
Both cornet and cello are capable of extreme virtuosity, as well as delicious sweetness, as displayed by James Shepherd who came from Newbiggin by the Sea (where my Father was born and where I spent nearly all my childhood holidays):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HanKJ2o6Q6M
I would regard that as not just good but great musicianship. Even at its most extreme of high notes and fast playing, lyricism is always there - everything is phrased (and the cornet is particularly well suited to that, since the deeper shape of mouthpiece allows for greater control than with a trumpet).
And, for completeness, here is a euphonium being put through its paces:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZ57wrZ5rPU
Incidentally, the Black Dyke Mills Band (featured in the above links) were regarded as the London Symphony Orchestra of the Brass Band world. My Granny's cousin (also from Newbiggin) was invited to join, but could not take up the offer for family reasons.
(Black Dyke Mills was literally that - a Yorkshire mill for weaving wool - and the owners provided a paying job/ sinecure for its band members.)
To focus on the cornet - it is like a trumpet in appearance, length, and basic pitch; but has a deeper mouthpiece and a conical bore (widening from the mouthpiece to the bell) which gives it greater sweetness of tone, and flexibility than a trumpet - at the cost of less sheer ringing brightness.
Early jazzmen such as Bix Beiderbecke and Louis Armstrong initially played the cornet but later switched to trumpet - which I personally regard as a step down into a more showily virtuoso style of soloing, characterized by extreme loud high notes (which the trumpet does better than the cornet).
The euphonium is the cello equivalent in a brass band and is like a smaller tuba - it has similar mellowness to the cello, but also a remarkable agility.
Both cornet and cello are capable of extreme virtuosity, as well as delicious sweetness, as displayed by James Shepherd who came from Newbiggin by the Sea (where my Father was born and where I spent nearly all my childhood holidays):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HanKJ2o6Q6M
I would regard that as not just good but great musicianship. Even at its most extreme of high notes and fast playing, lyricism is always there - everything is phrased (and the cornet is particularly well suited to that, since the deeper shape of mouthpiece allows for greater control than with a trumpet).
And, for completeness, here is a euphonium being put through its paces:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZ57wrZ5rPU
Incidentally, the Black Dyke Mills Band (featured in the above links) were regarded as the London Symphony Orchestra of the Brass Band world. My Granny's cousin (also from Newbiggin) was invited to join, but could not take up the offer for family reasons.
(Black Dyke Mills was literally that - a Yorkshire mill for weaving wool - and the owners provided a paying job/ sinecure for its band members.)
Against professional performers
We live in a world of professional performers - singers, musicians, actors, dancers; and it seems natural to us that these be mostly professionals, dominated by professionals who do these things for a living.
But - with a very important exception - I am against this, on the whole. The arts professions are full of dull, mediocre professionals, mostly supported by subsidies coercively extracted from the public at large - a public who seldom bother to attend even when performances are subsidized or free of charge.
I think it would be better, and the arts would be better, if done mostly/ almost entirely by amateurs - that is, by people who don't make their living from the performing arts.
Take dancing. When it became 'Dance' it became dominated by professionals; and we have gone from a world that was full of people dancing, to a world where people watch dancing - and the few who themselves do much dancing are wannabe professionals and their teachers.
Singing? Most of the best singers - in the sense of 'singers you would want to listen to' are amateurs. Professional singers offer many technical advantages such as quick-learning and breath control and reliability... but most of them just aren't very pleasant to listen-to and lack musicality. Beauty of voice and the ability to phrase are gifts: they cannot be manufactured.
Acting is a similar thing. Most professional actors are rubbish at acting - they succeed either because they are good looking or have a nice voice and because there are far more jobs for professions than talented professionals. (The same applies to directors.) Yet if you go to a school play, or amateur dramatics, you will usually find one or two absolutely stunning natural actors - who do things far beyond the professional.
Classical musical instruments generally require years of practice, yet most cities have amateur orchestras able to play nearly all of the repertoire to a good standard - and in concerts more enjoyable than those produced by the general run of cynical, jaded and under-rehearsed professional musicians. And in a wider musical perspective, folk music around the world is full of stunningly gifted part timers - virtuosi even.
What about the exception? The arts always have a place for the outstanding genius; and these are the people - they are the only people - who should be full-time professional performers.
Singers like Joan Sutherland or Pavarotti really were the best in the world - and by a margin, and pretty much everybody can hear the difference. People of that class (and the class just below that level) should be the professional performers, and they should be the only professionals.
Something similar applies to other performing artists - the few dancers, actors, instrumentalists who are really great are the ones who can make a living at it, and who the community is happy to support with fees - and the rest should be amateur.
The model even potentially applies to literature and painting.
John Martin (1789-1854), was an artist who specialized in epic Old Testament paintings - and he made a living by touring his vast canvases, and charging people to come and look at them.
The professional performing arts should be rare and stunning experiences; done by a tiny minority of great performers.
It is, in practice, almost impossible to prevent such people becoming professionals, and indeed becoming wealthy; because lots of people will willingly travel long distances, and pay large sums of their own money, to see 'the greats' perform.
But people will voluntarily do this only to experience greatness in performance; and not the mass of performers who merely competent, certified, salaried and 'professional'...
But - with a very important exception - I am against this, on the whole. The arts professions are full of dull, mediocre professionals, mostly supported by subsidies coercively extracted from the public at large - a public who seldom bother to attend even when performances are subsidized or free of charge.
I think it would be better, and the arts would be better, if done mostly/ almost entirely by amateurs - that is, by people who don't make their living from the performing arts.
Take dancing. When it became 'Dance' it became dominated by professionals; and we have gone from a world that was full of people dancing, to a world where people watch dancing - and the few who themselves do much dancing are wannabe professionals and their teachers.
Singing? Most of the best singers - in the sense of 'singers you would want to listen to' are amateurs. Professional singers offer many technical advantages such as quick-learning and breath control and reliability... but most of them just aren't very pleasant to listen-to and lack musicality. Beauty of voice and the ability to phrase are gifts: they cannot be manufactured.
Acting is a similar thing. Most professional actors are rubbish at acting - they succeed either because they are good looking or have a nice voice and because there are far more jobs for professions than talented professionals. (The same applies to directors.) Yet if you go to a school play, or amateur dramatics, you will usually find one or two absolutely stunning natural actors - who do things far beyond the professional.
Classical musical instruments generally require years of practice, yet most cities have amateur orchestras able to play nearly all of the repertoire to a good standard - and in concerts more enjoyable than those produced by the general run of cynical, jaded and under-rehearsed professional musicians. And in a wider musical perspective, folk music around the world is full of stunningly gifted part timers - virtuosi even.
What about the exception? The arts always have a place for the outstanding genius; and these are the people - they are the only people - who should be full-time professional performers.
Singers like Joan Sutherland or Pavarotti really were the best in the world - and by a margin, and pretty much everybody can hear the difference. People of that class (and the class just below that level) should be the professional performers, and they should be the only professionals.
Something similar applies to other performing artists - the few dancers, actors, instrumentalists who are really great are the ones who can make a living at it, and who the community is happy to support with fees - and the rest should be amateur.
The model even potentially applies to literature and painting.
John Martin (1789-1854), was an artist who specialized in epic Old Testament paintings - and he made a living by touring his vast canvases, and charging people to come and look at them.
The professional performing arts should be rare and stunning experiences; done by a tiny minority of great performers.
It is, in practice, almost impossible to prevent such people becoming professionals, and indeed becoming wealthy; because lots of people will willingly travel long distances, and pay large sums of their own money, to see 'the greats' perform.
But people will voluntarily do this only to experience greatness in performance; and not the mass of performers who merely competent, certified, salaried and 'professional'...
The most perfect instrumental miniature you have never heard
It is a Sonatina from JS Bach's Cantata 106
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5fRjrTtb0M
For me this is sublime: perfection in a short (two and a half minutes), small group, instrumental piece.
I love it for its use of my (secret) favourite instrument - the treble recorder: indeed a pair of them.
What makes this unique in my experience is two features: the loveliness of the melody; and the effect which Bach appears to have invented just for this - of using one recorder to hold a note while the other oscillates between that same note and others below or above it.
The above YouTube recording is inferior to the one I first heard - which was a 1970s LP featuring David Munrow, with the Early Music Consort of London - I recorded it 'live' onto a cassette tape which I long treasured....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5fRjrTtb0M
For me this is sublime: perfection in a short (two and a half minutes), small group, instrumental piece.
I love it for its use of my (secret) favourite instrument - the treble recorder: indeed a pair of them.
What makes this unique in my experience is two features: the loveliness of the melody; and the effect which Bach appears to have invented just for this - of using one recorder to hold a note while the other oscillates between that same note and others below or above it.
The above YouTube recording is inferior to the one I first heard - which was a 1970s LP featuring David Munrow, with the Early Music Consort of London - I recorded it 'live' onto a cassette tape which I long treasured....
Supreme singing: Stuart Burrows, Joan Sutherland
Firstly, perhaps the greatest singer to have emerged from the British Isles (almost certainly the one with the rarest technical equipment): Welsh Tenor Stuart Burrows, singing the Handel aria "Waft her Angels" with piano accompaniment.
Listen for the contrast between powerful and soft singing, the breath control (unsurpassed by any tenor ever, probably); and the way that (and this is very rare among tenors) after he has climbed towards a high note, when he hits that peak note his voice opens-out; and he can do this whether singing loudly or softly.
The actual aria begins at about 3:30 minutes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjqYMnLlq9w
And now, simply the best operatic singer that lived during the recording era: Joan Sutherland - a more beautiful sound and a better technique than anybody.
Accompanied (superbly - was there ever a better accompanist with the orchestra?) by her conductor husband Richard Bonynge.
This is the Victorian operetta ballad 'I dreamt I dwelt in marble halls' with music by Balfe and words by Bunn.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Dreamt_I_Dwelt_in_Marble_Halls
It would be worth looking at the words as you listen since Sutherland sacrificed diction to the Bel Canto idea of continuity of tone production... i.e. she slurred the words...
This little song is a perfect fusion of music and words - and an example of how sometimes the summit of artistry is attained just one-off, by otherwise minor artists.
I personally find this so beautiful as to be almost unbearable - when listening last night I crossed over that line between crying and blubbering, and it took a good while for me to recover.
Well, here goes...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yebOy5Ne6bQ
Listen for the contrast between powerful and soft singing, the breath control (unsurpassed by any tenor ever, probably); and the way that (and this is very rare among tenors) after he has climbed towards a high note, when he hits that peak note his voice opens-out; and he can do this whether singing loudly or softly.
The actual aria begins at about 3:30 minutes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjqYMnLlq9w
And now, simply the best operatic singer that lived during the recording era: Joan Sutherland - a more beautiful sound and a better technique than anybody.
Accompanied (superbly - was there ever a better accompanist with the orchestra?) by her conductor husband Richard Bonynge.
This is the Victorian operetta ballad 'I dreamt I dwelt in marble halls' with music by Balfe and words by Bunn.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Dreamt_I_Dwelt_in_Marble_Halls
It would be worth looking at the words as you listen since Sutherland sacrificed diction to the Bel Canto idea of continuity of tone production... i.e. she slurred the words...
This little song is a perfect fusion of music and words - and an example of how sometimes the summit of artistry is attained just one-off, by otherwise minor artists.
I personally find this so beautiful as to be almost unbearable - when listening last night I crossed over that line between crying and blubbering, and it took a good while for me to recover.
Well, here goes...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yebOy5Ne6bQ
The Virtuosi of England orchestra, on Classics for Pleasure
In the mid-seventies, as a mid-teen, I discovered Classical Music, and of course wanted to buy as many vinyl LPs as possible, so I could study and enjoy my favourite pieces.
My staple diet was the Classics for Pleasure series, since these were both the cheapest LPs, and also (almost all) very good performances.
My way-in was probably via the performances of Bach's Brandenberg Concerti by a scratch orchestra (that is, an orchestra assembled for the occasion) called The Virtuosi of England, conducted by Arthur Davison, from a new edition by Richard Townend, and the recording produced by John Boyden.
I ended-up buying quite a lot of these Davison/ Townend/ Boyden/ Virtuosi of England recordings of Bach, Albinoni, Vivaldi, Mozart, Purcell and what-not. I almost always liked them a lot; but they are somewhat mysterious, unappreciated and undocumented.
I infer that the Virtuosi of England (who were often listed by name) were composed of some of the best London orchestra musicians of that era - principals from the various 'sections' of the Philharmonia, BBC Symphony, LSO etc., freelancers of the stature of David Munrow (recorder) and other Professors from the Royal Academy of Music - presumably moonlighting for extra pocket-money; and led, usually, by Kenneth Sillito (who led the Gabrieli String Quartet, and the very best chamber orchestra I have ever known: The Academy of St Martin in the Fields).
The Virtuosi of England... Long-gone, unrecognized, but not forgotten by me - on the contrary remembered with gratitude; and their clean, fresh, firm vinyl performances still being enjoyed (despite forty years worth of accumulated scratches)!
My staple diet was the Classics for Pleasure series, since these were both the cheapest LPs, and also (almost all) very good performances.
My way-in was probably via the performances of Bach's Brandenberg Concerti by a scratch orchestra (that is, an orchestra assembled for the occasion) called The Virtuosi of England, conducted by Arthur Davison, from a new edition by Richard Townend, and the recording produced by John Boyden.
I ended-up buying quite a lot of these Davison/ Townend/ Boyden/ Virtuosi of England recordings of Bach, Albinoni, Vivaldi, Mozart, Purcell and what-not. I almost always liked them a lot; but they are somewhat mysterious, unappreciated and undocumented.
I infer that the Virtuosi of England (who were often listed by name) were composed of some of the best London orchestra musicians of that era - principals from the various 'sections' of the Philharmonia, BBC Symphony, LSO etc., freelancers of the stature of David Munrow (recorder) and other Professors from the Royal Academy of Music - presumably moonlighting for extra pocket-money; and led, usually, by Kenneth Sillito (who led the Gabrieli String Quartet, and the very best chamber orchestra I have ever known: The Academy of St Martin in the Fields).
The Virtuosi of England... Long-gone, unrecognized, but not forgotten by me - on the contrary remembered with gratitude; and their clean, fresh, firm vinyl performances still being enjoyed (despite forty years worth of accumulated scratches)!
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