Description: William Gilbert's verses for Arthur Sullivan's music are the most fastidiously turned and inventively rhymed in all lyric comedy. From "Trial by Jury" to "The Pirates of Penzance", here are the librettos on which modern performances and recordings are based. Includes biographical sketches of Gilbert and Sullivan and the amusing pictures drawn by Gilbert to illustrate the music.
Brief description: Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan, MVO, was an English composer, of Irish and Italian descent, best known for his operatic collaborations with librettist Sir William Schwenck Gilbert, including such continually popular works as H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance, and The Mikado. Sullivan's artistic output included 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, parlour ballads, part songs, carols, and piano and chamber pieces.