After so many years of shameful neglect, recordings of the delightful
music of Lionel Monckton are beginning to appear at last. In 2004,
Divine Art released an album of excerpts from La Cingalee,
The Arcadians and The Quaker Girl performed by the
Théâtre Bel-Etage which is a leading company in Estonia, who have
dedicated themselves to the English stage musical and "Variety"
style of Victorian and Edwardian days. Raymond Walker’s
review of this recording prompted me to acquire a copy. I
was impressed enough to include it in my list of Recordings
of the Year. Now at last a British company has woken up to
the delights of Monckton: so cheers to Hyperion! This is a first
class production not only because it contains so much material
from so many of the Gaiety hits (see header list above), most
of them little known, but also because the soloists are so good.
Bott’s and Suart’s singing is characterful and engages fully with
the often coy and innocent spirit of these little period ditties.
Monckton’s Gaiety productions were quite inconsequential – not
dissimilar to variety shows, with a rudimentary plot, pretty chorus
girls and catchy tunes.
Born
in London, Lionel Monckton was educated at Charterhouse School and at Oxford
University, where he composed music for amateur productions.
Initially in the legal profession, he nevertheless gained part-time
work as a theatre and music critic, first for the Pall Mall
Gazette and, later for the Daily Telegraph. At the
age of 29, in 1891, he had a song placed in a professional musical
show co-written with lyricist Basil
Hood. Thereafter Monckton became an increasingly regular composer
- and often lyricist, as on 10 of the 22 tracks of this collection
- of songs for the musical
comedies performed at London's Gaiety Theatre, under the management
of George
Edwardes, which premiered popular shows throughout the 1890s
and into the first decade of the 20th century. In 1902 Lionel
married Gertie
Millar, one of the most successful actresses of the period,
who starred in many of his shows, many of which had “The Girl”
in their titles. Monckton's songs became very popular and continued
to be performed long after the shows closed -some of them remaining
popular into the 1960s. Those of us over seventy (and perhaps
some over sixty) might recall them from post World War II radio
broadcasts - BBC Light Programme variety shows and request programmes.
Monckton’s
work that is probably best remembered is The Arcadians.
The complementary Divine Art recording features six numbers
from this show including the well known The Pipes of Pan
but the two included here are quite delightful: the opening
famous number, with a racecourse setting, Charming Weather,
being a trivial conversational escape when a couple’s amorous
chatter is interrupted by friends crowding around them at
the end of each race; and All Down Piccadilly, is one
of the several ditties sung by young toffs and rendered in
superbly comic, terribly disdainful upper class tones by Richard
Suart – “I’m London’s latest whim! I’ve been a hit, in fact
I’m it … All down Piccadilly , dilly dilly dilly, Round by
the Park, You’ll see ladies running after Little Willie Till
it gets dark!”. You get the sort of thing? Another Monckton
hit show, The Quaker Girl is represented by three hits:
“A bad boy and a good girl” has the coy Miss Bott being pursued
by the bad Mr Suart (“May the bad boy please give her hand
one squeeze …”) but inevitably the good Miss Bott succombs
(“Oh I fear thee’s a lad who is very, very bad now really
thee must be good”) – all innocent fun; The little grey
bonnet has Miss Bott’s admirer, Tony, daring to lunge
beneath her bonnet to plant a kiss – the cad!; but by the
time it’s Tony from America the captivated Miss Bott
is yearning for his return. Our Miss Gibbs was another
great hit show and two well known numbers are included, both
giving Catherine Bott the opportunity to show off her charm
and skills, first with in an excellent Yorkshire accent for
Mary who can’t abide southern pretences and insists
her admirers call her, formally, Miss Gibbs; and the famous
catchy melody of Moonstruck in which she admonishes
the orb because “I’m such a silly when the moon comes out.”
There
is much fun to be had from all the rest of the numbers featured
here and it would make this review interminably long if I
rattled on about them but I must mention the wonderfully politically
incorrect The sly cigarette which has a chorus that
would infuriate today’s ’Elf and Safety brigade, “Oh fie,
cigarette! Why did you teach me to love you so, When I have
to pretend that I don’t, you know?”
Monckton's
last big hit was The Boy in 1917 (produced after
Edwardes's death), a musical-comedy version of Pinero's 1885 play, The Magistrate.
Tastes were changing and Monckton felt adrift: he had little
enthusiasm for the modern revues to which he was asked to contribute
and he was unwilling to adapt his style to the newly popular dance
rhythms. He ceased composing. Monckton died at the age of 62.
A
wonderful old-fashioned treat especially if you like Gilbert
and Sullivan. This will be a strong candidate for my Recordings
of the Year list. Now Hyperion what about an album dedicated
to Ivor Novello with the same soloists?
Ian
Lace
