gilbert's sources
Jan. 24th, 2007 10:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kip_w.
When we were rehearsing "The Mikado," I suggested to the music director that "Tit-Willow" was a sort of parody or satire or something of the old song (used by Shakespeare, written earlier and circulated in a broadside), "Willow, Willow" -- to wit:
So the other evening, my player was disgorging tunes at random, according to some strange quirk of its own (I hadn't asked it to do this), and one of the selections it chose was a number from Purcell's "Dido and Aeneas" that I hadn't heard many times. The singer and the chorus were using a phrase, "No never" that had me murmuring, "What, never?" back at it. That's when it hit me that this might have been another inspiration to Gilbert. I carefully peered over at the screen and saw that I was listening to an Act III prelude, "Come Away, Fellow Sailors" -- ah HA! Sailors! The Gilbert & Sullivan number was also nautical in nature.
I think I'm onto something. Ferreted out a reference or two. Yay me.
.
When we were rehearsing "The Mikado," I suggested to the music director that "Tit-Willow" was a sort of parody or satire or something of the old song (used by Shakespeare, written earlier and circulated in a broadside), "Willow, Willow" -- to wit:
A poor Soul sat sighing under a Sy-camore Tree
O Willow Willow Willow
With her Hand on her Bosom her Head on her Knee
O Willow Willow Willow Willow
Sing the green Willow
O the green Willow shall be my Garland.
She sigh'd in her singing sigh'd and after each moan
O Willow Willow Willow
I am dead to all Pleasure my true Love is gone
O Willow Willow Willow Willow
Sing the green Willow
O the green Willow shall be my Garland.
The Willow now bids me - bids me despair and to die
O Willow Willow Willow
So hang it Friends o'er me in Grave where I lie
O Willow Willow Willow Willow
Sing the green Willow
O the green Willow shall be my Garland.
So the other evening, my player was disgorging tunes at random, according to some strange quirk of its own (I hadn't asked it to do this), and one of the selections it chose was a number from Purcell's "Dido and Aeneas" that I hadn't heard many times. The singer and the chorus were using a phrase, "No never" that had me murmuring, "What, never?" back at it. That's when it hit me that this might have been another inspiration to Gilbert. I carefully peered over at the screen and saw that I was listening to an Act III prelude, "Come Away, Fellow Sailors" -- ah HA! Sailors! The Gilbert & Sullivan number was also nautical in nature.
I think I'm onto something. Ferreted out a reference or two. Yay me.
.
