Lady Sangazures's Song

It was originally intended that Lady Sangazure's recitative in Act I (No. 7) should be followed by a ballad. The words were included in the first published edition of the libretto and it may have been sung in early performances since at least one of the first night reviews mentions it (The Daily News). The music was not included in the first edition of the vocal score and its pages have been removed from the autograph. Curiously, in advance of the publication of the first edition of the vocal score in December 1877, Metzler put out a newspaper advertisment for the sheet music of ten solo numbers from The Sorcerer. Among them is listed the song 'In days gone by'. for contralto. No copy is known to exist.

Dr. David Russell Hulme is working on a reconstruction of the song. He writes:

The reconstruction is based on an incomplete set of instrumental parts from the 1877 production. These include the cello/bass part. They are sufficient to enable the harmony to be realised with reasonable confidence. They also carry numerous implications, clues, etc. regarding the melody that I hope I have interpreted soundly. Here and there
Gilbert's words have been conflated — something, of course, that Sullivan often did.

I am still working on the orchestral parts but expect to have a finished score available fairly soon. Meanwhile, I thought it would satisfy some of the curiosity that has been expressed about the song if I released the
vocal part.

The finished song is not available for performance just yet, but it will be unveiled as soon as something approriate can be arranged.

The reconstructed vocal part can be downloaded as a PDF file.

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Page Created 9 March 2011