Scope of the G&S Discography

The G&S Discography seeks to present every significant Gilbert and/or Sullivan recording ever offered for commercial sale. Also included are major television programs and radio broadcasts, even if they were never in any other format. This site covers four major types of recordings:

• Complete recordings, and substantial abridgements, of G&S operas, including operas the two men wrote with other partners. You'll find these listed in the opera index, the chronological index, and in the historical tour.

• G&S highlights. These are listed in the highlights index and include:
  • Concerted highlights (typically, anthologies of material not previously issued).
  • Solo recitals (recordings dedicated primarily to the art of one singer).
  • Instrumental arrangements from Sullivan's operas.
  • Compilations of overtures.
  • Compilations from previously-issued material.

• Derivative works (histories, parodies, take-offs).

• Recordings of Sullivan's non-operatic works, which are listed in the Sullivan index.

The following types of items are excluded:

• Amateur and non-commercial recordings, except for a few issues that include (or, at least, included at the time of issue) material not readily available from commercial sources.

  I exclude these for a few reasons. First, amateur recordings usually are available for only a short time, are not well publicized, and do not achieve a particularly wide distribution. Most are not of a quality that would appeal to the typical listener, unless the material itself is rare. While there are exceptions to these generalizations, I am loth to start making value judgements about amateur companies, nor do I think it particularly useful to list every amateur recording or video that has ever been offered for sale. Therefore, I choose to list amateur recordings only when the material itself is of special interest (e.g., a recording of a Sullivan opera that has rarely been recorded).

• Detached highlights from the 78rpm era. (Complete sets and substantial abridgements are included.)

  During the 78rpm era, Sullivan recordings were made by the thousands. To list all of these would be an enormous task. Moreover, as I am not a collector of 78's, all I could do would be merely to copy other people's catalogs and discographies without adding any value of my own. I am inclined to think that this task should be undertaken by someone who has more insights to the material than I have. I also question whether the bulk of this material is of interest to the typical reader. I have chosen to list all of the complete sets from the 78rpm era, because most of these have been re-issued on LP or CD, and most of those that haven't are of considerable importance historically.

• Recordings that have just a few Sullivan tracks, amidst mostly non-Sullivan material.

  There have, of course, been many of these, and I simply feel they are not of sufficient interest to bother with. (I would list such an item if either the quality of the performance or the rarity of the material warranted it.)

My primary objective is to be useful, so I reserve the right to break my own rules where I feel it is helpful to do so.

"Recordings" versus "Issues"
Most G&S recordings, unless they are extremely old or extremely recent, have been issued multiple times in a variety of formats. For example, Decca issued most of the sets in D'Oyly Carte's monaural series simultaneously on both LP records and 78's, and most of them even on 45's. Later, in the 1960s, the whole series was issued again on the budget Ace of Clubs and Richmond labels. Similarly, most of D'Oyly Carte's first stereo recordings were also issued in mono (to say nothing of more-recent cassette and CD re-issues).

The more popular historical sets, originally issued on 78rpm records, present an even more confusing state of affairs. These have continued to be issued repeatedly in every available format (mono LP, stereo LP, cassette and CD). What's more, these recordings are now essentially in the public domain and are free to be re-issued by anybody who can find a set in good enough condition to transfer.

This discography is concerned with recordings, not issues. Each set is covered once, regardless of the number of times and/or formats in which it has been re-packaged. An issue history appears at the bottom of each recording's web page. This lists the format, label, catalog number and packaging details of every issue of a given recording that I know of. Thanks to my own collection, comprehensive databases provided by Seth Schneider, Dave Kehs, J. Donald Smith, and Chris Webster, email input from other correspondents too numerous to mention, and various other sources, I think the issue histories are very close to comprehensive, though I am constantly discovering new information.

Collectors are especially cautioned that what may appear to be a "new" recording may be an old one with new cover art. Look closely at copyright dates and cast lists, to make sure you really are getting something new. You would be amazed how often old recordings are dressed up in new clothes. (For a recording with a really complex issue history, see the 1927 Trial By Jury, for example.)