The Sargent/Glyndebourne Trial By Jury (1961)

Cast The Learned Judge George Baker The Plaintiff Elsie Morison The Defendant Richard Lewis Counsel for the Plaintiff John Cameron Usher Owen Brannigan Foreman of the Jury Bernard Turgeon Pro Arte Orchestra Glyndebourne Festival Chorus Conductor: Sir Malcolm Sargent Recorded 29-30 December 1960

Angel 35966

This Trial is easily the strongest entry in the series of G&S recordings led by Sir Malcolm Sargent from 1957 to 1963. The recording has the feel of a stage production, with audible laughs, gasps, sighs and cheers at the twists and turns of Gilbert's riotous plot. Arthur Jacobs's liner notes in the first-edition LP (not reproduced in the re-issues) tell a bit about how this was achieved:

It was not enough, the recording company felt, to use stereo in Trial By Jury merely to reproduce the spatial feeling of a concert platform. A theatrical work ought to seem theatrical; there ought to be movement across the stage, and towards and away from the footlights, detectable in your living room as theatre.

So Colin Graham, noted young British director, was called in.... [Recording supervisor Peter] Andry, who has supervised all these Gilbert & Sullivan recordings of Sir Malcolm's, had arranged for a "stage" to be provided in the studio. Not a raised stage, but a big square divided into sixty-four numbered squares as though for some giant game of chess. The sides of each of the smaller squares were about two feet long. The cast moved over the numbered squares during performance, each carrying a paper bearing Mr. Graham's instructions--for example, "Bridesmaids enter from 56-7 to 46-7, chattering until they sing."

All the Sargent recordings are strong, at least musically, but this is perhaps the one that can be safely recommended as a first choice.

The recording was originally issued on a single LP. In later years it was not as easy to come by as the other Sargent sets, perhaps because EMI felt embarassed issuing a disc with so little playing time. It was digitally re-mastered and re-issued on CD with the Sargent Pinafore. It was also issued in a three-cassette box with the Sargent Mikado and Gondoliers.

Issue History