Gilbert and Sullivan are usually credited with inventing the patter song in opera. They're certainly responsible for the classic statement.
This particularly rapid
Unintelligible patter
Isn’t generally heard
And if it is it doesn’t matter!
It's in Ruddigore - here's the wonderful cast of the film with Vincent Price, who was not trained as a G&S singer, battling through the lines!! (The song was so successful that it was (heavens!) reused out of context in another film - of Pirates of Penzance.)
But patter preceded G&S by multiple centuries, in Greek theatre, and more recently adorned classic operas, notably by Mozart, Rossini and Donizetti.
Sometimes these are “list songs” (think Leporello’s 'Catalogue aria' of Don Giovanni’s conquests. Here's Gerard Finlay's Leporello at ROH. )
Sometimes they are just multi-voiced chaos (as in Mozart’s infamous sextets). A list of the most famous patter songs is here. And of course they are not limited to opera - read on here!
And a thinkpiece here about their origins - way back before G&S. Which includes the most wonderful trivia gem: did you know how they were so named?
The word "patter" derives from the Pater Noster, or Lord's Prayer, "which Catholics recited in its original Latin. The habit of rushing through the words as quickly as possible gave rise to the term in England.
The New Grove Dictionary of Music offers this definition: ‘A comic song in which the humour derives from having the greatest number of words uttered in the shortest possible time’. But a patter song is much more that that. It’s arguably the ultimately operatic humour, since it always requires both brilliant libretto and brilliant, often multi-part, music. The libretto is typically witty, very fast and with rapid rhythmic patterns for the syllables. And the music is of course how this happens. An actor reciting those words on the stage would be merely puzzling. Both the words and the music have humour but it’s the combination that works wonders.
But possibly most importantly, in the hands of many librettists, and notoriously Gilbert, a good patter song is marked by atrocious rhymes! Remember the Modern Major General stuck for a rhyme for 'strategy'?
When I have learnt what progress has been made in modern gunnery,
When I know more of tactics than a novice in a nunnery –
In short, when I've a smattering of elemental strategy – [long pause...]
You'll say a better Major-General has never sat a gee.
The Cambridge guide to G&S offers this insight: “Gilbert once said of Sullivan, ‘He used to maintain, oddly enough, that there was no such thing as humour in music, but in my humble judgment he was, himself, a musical humourist of the very highest order’. To be sure, words and music each have humour, but there is a third kind of humour at work in Gilbert and Sullivan, as is most vividly shown in their patter songs. This humour stems from the formal relationship between words and music. In patter songs, consonants and vowels tumble over each other in sheer sonic joy, careering at the absolute edge of intelligibility. The question of intelligibility that these songs raise forces a re-evaluation of the boundaries between words and music. It then seems necessary to ask how this effect is produced and why the patter song's status on the border of intelligibility is funny…. A patter song is not defined by its structure at the level of bars or sections (like a blues or a symphony), but by a much smaller unit of measure: the relationship between words and time.”
Our end of term concert is gathering its playlist, and the links to the recordings we'll play will be added to this post..... Please send them in - by Wednesday, so your loyal Program and Playlist Preparation Team can be ready by Friday.
Our Spring Concert program ____________
Here's what we are playing for our end of term.
First section - Mozart Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro (Paris, 14 July 1980) Kurt Moll is Bartolo. (What's going on? Briefly, he's plotting to make Figaro marry Marcellina, his housekeeper who's also - see below - Figaro's mother. He's the father. I'm not making this up, as Anna Russell would say.)
Mozart is much happier with sextets that tangle and resolve. Here’s the end of that act – from a full opera recording with a fab cast at Glyndebourne, 1999. (Figaro has just found his parents but Susanna is yet to discover why they are embracing.) Ileana Cotrubas - soprano (Susanna) Knut Skram - baritone (Figaro) Benjamin Luxon - baritone (Count Almaviva) Marius Rintzler - bass (Dr. Bartolo) Nucci Condo - mezzo-soprano (Marcellina) TREAT: this link gives you the entire opera, with Kiri te Kanawa as the Countess. _______________________________________________________________ And Mozart’s most famous patter song? Leporello’s 'Catalogue aria' of Don Giovanni’s conquests, of course. Gerard Finlay was Leporello at ROH. _______________________________________________________________ Rossini is next Alessandro Corbelli is Cinderella's befuddled father in La Cenerentola at the MET 2009 _______________________________________________________________ In the famous film version, Hermann Prey as Figaro sings that aria "Largo al factotum" from Il barbiere di Siviglia. More recently, here's Björn Bürger as Figaro in Glyndebourne's production of The Barber of Seville ______________________________________________________________________________ We saw Rossini’s ‘L’Italiana in Algeri’ earlier this term. Finale Act 1 is a comedy cascade. From our performance - Bartoli, Abdrazakov, Corbelli. You remember the plot. (the patter song is from 4.41 to finish 9.08) How different when it was Marilyn Horne for the Met!!! (from 14.00 to end 18.40) _______________________________________________________________ And then came Donizetti "Udite, Udite, o rustici" ("Come up, yokels!") Bryn Terfel from Donizetti’s Elixir of Love - the snake oil salesman arrives in the town and everyone of course believes him. ______________________________________________________________ "Cheti, cheti immantinente" Final Patter duet from Don Pasquale, Malatesta and the Don at the end of Act 3 with encore. (What's going on? Don Pasquale has discovered that his new wife, Norina, is going to meet her lover and asks the Doctor for his help. They plot to confront the lovers that night.) Met production with Marius Kwiecien and John del Carlo.
How hard is that?? Watch the lips... Concert performance with Luca Pisaroni (Don P) and Thomas Hamson (Mallatesta) is here. ___________________________________________________________________ The G&S collection Best known: Major General’s song from Pirates: _______________________________________________________________ From Mikado: Koko singing "I've Got a Little List" Australian Opera Nov 2011 _______________________________________________________________ Iolanthe: The Lord Chancellor singing "The Nightmare Song..When you're lying awake..." English National Opera Co, 2018 _______________________________________________________________ Ruddigore the trio with that important last verse. Margaret, Robin and Despard singing "My eyes are fully open..." _______________________________________________________________ Anna Russell on "How to write you own Gilbert and Sullivan opera". The patter song is sung by the rich tycoon who's going to marry the soprano. (It is from 6.32 to 9.10. But do yourself a favour and listen to the whole gem. ___________________________________________________________________
Finale: The modern offerings Noel Coward Yes, it's "Mad Dogs and Englishmen" - Noel Coward’s voice recorded in 1932 and here is Noel Coward live! In 1955
If you want to follow on, or work out why the BBC banned it, here are the words.
_______________________________________________________________
And finally!!
I've Been Everywhere, by Australian country singer Geoff Mack in 1959.
The song's Wikipedia page, in typical Wiki mode provides full documentation and detail, including lists of the places named and links to them. Any song with a Wiki page is surely worthy of our consideration?
Have a great spring break everyone, and keep singing.
Lyn, 14/9/23
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