G. Schirmer Mikado Vocal Score Errata

by Steven Lichtenstein and Neil Midkiff
3rd edition, June 2014; new notes marked [NM*]

Key to measure indications:
     A/B/C = Page/System/Measure

References:
     Pond = 1885 vocal score edited by G. L. Tracy with Sullivan's approval, published by Wm. A. Pond & Co., New York
     Bosworth = 1898 full score prepared from Sullivan's autograph score and published in Leipzig by Bosworth & Co.
     Dover = 1999 full score edited by Carl Simpson and Ephraim Hammett Jones, published by Dover.
     Bradley = Ian Bradley's The Complete Annotated Gilbert & Sullivan, published by Oxford University Press, 1996.

VOCAL AND LIBRETTO ERRATA

20/3/1: New Dover score rhythm in vocal parts is 8th, 8th, 16th-16th, 8th so that the second "ma-ny" is on the sixteenth notes, following Bosworth which just has "many" underneath an eighth note. Pond has "-ny a" underneath the last eighth note; Schirmer follows Pond but divides that note into 16ths. [NM]

22/3/5: Bosworth gives "Why, who are you..." to Pish-Tush. [NM*]

26/3/2: Quarter rest after "do—" missing in some printings [NM*]

39/1/4: Bosworth full score has "cut his" on two quarter notes and Dover follows that; Schirmer follows Pond. [NM]

44/2/1: Pish's "day" should be a D, not a B. [NM]

55/1-2: On "High Executioner" Bosworth and Pond have all tenors on C; Bosworth also marks it "unis." for tenors; the 2nd tenor line seems to be a Schirmer invention. It's not bad, though. [NM]

56/2/1: "Nigger" traditionally replaced with "banjo." [SL]

59/1/1-2 and 61/4/1-2: Bosworth & Dover show choral "none of them" rather than "none of 'em" each time. I don't see anything wrong with "'em" on the sixteenth note in the first measure since "got 'em" and "put 'em" are correct, but certainly on the eighth notes in the second measure "none of them" seems preferable. [NM]

78/2/3: "pardon" should be dotted eighth and sixteenth. [NM]

78/3/4: "hard on" should be dotted eighth and sixteenth. [NM]

89/1/4: "as" should be D, not B. [NM]

89/3/1: Text is incorrect. For "that," read "yam." [SL]

96/2/1: Pooh's "vol-" should be a B, not a C. [NM]

97/4/1: Pooh-Bah's second eighth-note should be F#, not A. [SL]

98/1/2: Pooh's B notes on "Of a" should obviously be sixteenths. [NM]

111/1/5: For clarity, "Tutti" should be marked on alto, tenor, and bass staves as well as soprano staff. [NM*]

128/3/1: Basses' notes should be E-E-B-E-E-B, just like the piano left hand. [NM]

133/4/4: Bosworth and Pond both show Katisha's lower notes in ordinary size and the upper notes in small size as an alternate version. [NM]

136/2/5: Missing quarter rest on women's chorus line. [NM*]

139/2/5: Schirmer's fermata on the quarter note "a-" is spurious. [NM]

139/2/7: There's an unwanted quarter rest in the chorus men's staff. [NM]

146/4/1: Lyric reads "don't" rather than "won't" in Gilbert's libretto and in Bosworth and Pond. [NM]

147/4/1-2: The a tempo is after the bar line in Bosworth (and as in Schirmer 149/4/2); Schirmer follows Pond here. [NM]

150, Nanki's second speech: Early libretti have "How some bridegrooms...!" Bradley claims that "Now..." is a later misprint, even appearing in his earlier paperback Penguin volumes. [NM]

156/2/9: Pish-Tush sings the higher F in both endings (in both Bosworth and Pond). [NM]

162/3/2-3: Ko-Ko's text should read "For if what I say is true, He" [NM]

171/2/3: Katisha's note on "Bow-" should be a dotted half as before. [NM]

176/1/4: "Blacked like a nigger with..." traditionally replaced with "painted with vigour and..." [SL]

187/2/2-5: The rit. and a tempo are not in other editions and should be deleted. Bosworth (followed by Dover) has the trio conclude with "we say" and the chorus conclude with "they say" but Schirmer follows Pond and the libretti having everyone repeat "he says". In this case I'd go with Schirmer but others may prefer the Bosworth reading. [NM]

204/1/2: Katisha's first note is B in Bosworth, but G# in Dover and Pond. [NM*]

204/2/1: Bosworth has G# on "and"; Schirmer's F# follows Pond. [NM]

PIANO ERRATA

4/5/2: Fermata is not in Bosworth; if used, it should be on C (next-to-last sixteenth note) rather than on final B, according to Kalmus parts. [NM*]

5/1/1: This measure is not present in Bosworth or parts. [NM*]

5/1/2: Add quarter-note G major triads on beats 2 and 3; easiest to match those in 5/1/3 left hand, but they extend throughout woodwinds (p) and brass (pp). [NM*]

5/1/4: Add an F# to the top of the LH chord on beat 1 to cover Horn I in the chord; resolve it to G in the next chord if you like. [NM*]

5/3/2: Add a G# to the top of the LH chord on beat 1 to cover Trombone I in the chord; resolve it to A in the next chord if you like. [NM*]

5/5/1: Last 32nd rest and note B in RH should be simply a 16th-note B according to Bosworth and parts. [NM*]

6/5/4: Last 8th rest matches Violin I part, but Clarinet I and Bassoon (which generally parallel Violin I on the melody here) have 16th rest and 16th note G slurred to the next Ab downbeat of 7/1/1. [NM*]

7/2/1: Four bars of the full score are missing from Schirmer's piano reduction, which would be inserted at the middle of the measure here. It's basically "Yes, I'd like to see a tiger from the Congo or the Niger, and especially when lashing of his tail" from No. 23, with near-tutti Bb chords as in 7/2/1 both under the "Yes" and after the inserted phrase. [NM]

14/2/3: Right hand first note A is missing its leger line. [NM*]

17/2/3: Piano right hand rhythm should follow vocal line (8th, 16th-16th, 8th, 8th). (Problems here and in clarinet/bassoon parts arise from variant words and rhythms between Bosworth and Pond [whose piano part Schirmer seems to have relied upon even when changing vocal rhythms to match 20th-century D'Oyly Carte practice]) [NM]

17/4/1: Same as 17/2/3. [NM*]

18/1/1: Piano right hand rhythm should follow vocal line (8th, 8th, 8th, 16th-16th). [NM]

25/2/2: The last eighth-note chord in the right hand is printed a third too low. It should be a Bb-Major chord, D-F-Bb (bottom-to-top). [SL]

33/4/1: Piano RH last chord should have A on the bottom as in 36/3/5. [NM*]

41/1/5: Final RH chord should be played an octave lower than printed. [NM*]

68/3/2: In the left hand, the bottom notes of the first two eighth-note chords should be F#, not G. It changes to G on the second beat. [SL]

77/3/3: Second eighth-note in the left hand should be a B (as in 82/2/5). [SL]

88/3/1: The eighth notes on beat 2 in the RH should be dotted. [NM*]

91/3/6: The vivo in Schirmer is not in Bosworth or Pond or Dover. [NM]

93/1/1: Common rather than cut time in Bosworth and Pond and Dover. Bosworth is marked quarter note = 84. [NM]

93/1/2: Beginning with the last note of this measure (at p), the accompaniment is only pizzicato strings, so play staccato until 93/4/5; then slur all four notes of the parallel thirds together (clarinets); arco strings with the rest of the woodwinds begin in 94/1/1. [NM*]

94/3/3: The top note of the final right-hand chord should be a G-natural instead of an A. [SL]

96/2/1 and 96/2/2: Last 8th note in LH should be F# instead of D in each measure. [NM*]

98/1/2: rit. (and following a tempo in 98/2/1) not present in Bosworth nor Kalmus parts. [NM*]

111/1/1-4: The piano reduction shows afterbeats in the right hand on the ascending scales, but these notes are on the beat (quarter notes) in the woodwinds and bass and pairs of eighth notes (a quarter note with a single diagonal tremolo slash through the stem) in the rest of the strings, so the afterbeats sound awkward. I find it works well on the piano to play alternating eighth notes in both hands, with the top and bottom lines on the beat and the inner lines on the offbeats. Of course this applies to p. 228 as well. [NM]

117/1/1: Cut time in Pond, Allegro agitato; Common time in Bosworth, Allegro agitato half note=80 (followed by Dover). Most conductors I've worked with find this safer in four. [NM]

121/3/2: The last eighth-note group in the bar is printed a third too low. It should be G-B instead of E-G. It is corrected in the next-to-last musical illustration below. [SL]

140/2/4: The accompaniment fails to indicate a significant harmonic detail in this bar: there is a quarter-note C-natural on the first beat which rises to a C# on the second beat, resolving to D in the following bar. This could be played by the left hand, with the 16th-note chords, as follows: [SL]

          Alternatively, a C# could be added in the middle of the right hand F octave. [NM]

151/1/5-6: Violin I doubles Yum-Yum on the words "Brightly dawns" [NM*]

152/1/1-2: Piano right hand staccato is spurious; these are ordinary notes in the string parts. [NM]

152/1/3: Piano right hand tie is not in violin 1; instead, slur begins on the second F under "Fick-". [NM]

152/1/4: Cello continues through this measure doubling Pish's notes as eighth notes separated by eighth rests. [NM]

154/2/2-3: Violin I doubles Yum-Yum on the words "Sing a mer-" [NM*]

154/2/6 through first half of 155/1/3: Cello doubles Pish-Tush, but where Schirmer has rests in piano LH, cello part in Bosworth has eighth notes separated by eighth rests under Pish's quarter notes, except for the final quarter note (beat 2 of 155/1/3) which the cello plays at full value. [NM*]

156/2/5-9: Cello doubles Pish-Tush, except that it takes the low F in both first and second endings while Pish-Tush sings the higher F the first time. [NM]

162/1/1: Piano right hand needs an F# on "pret-" just as it is two measures earlier. [NM]

175/3/3: The Bach fugue [BWV 542] quoted by Sullivan is easily inserted into the piano accompaniment. It is played in 2/4 time (against the 6/8 meter of the song), and begins on the second eighth-note of this bar (second of the four eighth-notes in 2/4 time, that is). The notes are:

E (eighth-note), C-D-B-C (four 16th-notes), down to A (eighth-note), up an octave to A (eighth-note), G#-A-F#-G# (four 16th-notes), down to E (eighth-note). It is played in octaves, by bassoon and clarinet. It is included in the Dover piano-vocal score. [SL]

185/1/4: There is a bass drum solo on the second dotted-quarter of this measure, which may be pianistically duplicated with a low B in octaves. [SL]

185/4/4: There should be a low A# in the left hand, which ties over to the next measure. There are in addition many amusing woodwind lines in this number which are omitted from the piano reduction, and which would be too difficult to list here. A conscientious accompanist will want to study an orchestral score, when possible, or listen to a recording to try and duplicate them. This, of course, applies in a general way to the entire score. [SL]

190/1/1: Common time in Bosworth and Pond and Dover, though Bosworth and Dover do state half note = 80. [NM]

196/2/4-5: Last four chords are pizzicato strings, so should be played staccato. [NM*]

205/1/4: piano chord on beat 3 is pizzicato strings, so should be staccato. [NM*]

Additional notes by Steven Lichtenstein:

A number of such additional orchestral details can be found in the new piano reduction arranged by Ephraim Smith and available in the piano-vocal score published by Dover Books. I contributed a number of suggestions for this arrangement, many (but not all) of which were used. Here are a few that didn't make it, for the simple reason that I didn't think of them on time:

50/2/3: The triplet figure played by the cornets just before the first "Defer, defer to the Lord High Executioner." It's a nice rhythmic touch, and is easy to add, as follows: [SL]

121/3/3: There is a figure in the clarinets and bassoons that is well worth adding at this point: [SL]

181/3/3: And here's one more that I like to do but don't really expect anyone else to follow suit with, unless they like a challenge. It's the woodwind line representing the "shriek that shrieked he." [SL]

It actually yields nicely to a bit of practice. Even if it comes out a bit sloppy sounding, at least it gives the right effect! [SL]

Page updated 24 Jun 2014.