As a man with Darwinian training, I do admit a bias toward accepting long survival as the first rough criterion in our guidebook for identifying species of true excellence. I continue to regard as sagacious a childhood bet that I made with my brother, although he never paid up—that Beethoven would outlast the rock hit of that particular moment, “Roll Over Beethoven.” But if we must set aside the spurious correlation of minor with transient and major with enduring, and then take the more radical step of rejecting the taxonomy of major versus minor altogether, then the mystery surrounding the survival of Gilbert and Sullivan cannot be ascribed to the minor status of their chosen genre. And yet the mystery remains, and even intensifies, when thus stripped of its customary context. Why their work, and no others of the time? And if excellence be the common substrate of such endurance, how can we recognize this most elusive quality before the test of time provides a merely empirical confirmation?
I have no original insight to propose on this question of questions, but I can offer a quirky little personal testimony about Gilbert and Sullivan that might, at best, focus some useful discussion. Unless a creative person entirely abjures any goal or desire to communicate his efforts to fellow human beings, then I suspect that all truly excellent works must exist simultaneously on two planes—and must be constructed (whether consciously or not) in such duality. I also confess to the elitist view that the novel and distinguishing aspect of excellent works will be fully accessible to very few consumers—initially, perhaps, to none at all.
Two reasons regulate this “higher” plane: the motivating concept may be novel beyond any power of contemporary comprehension (“ahead of its time,” in a common but misleading phrase, for time marks no necessary incrementation of quality, and the first recorded human art, the 35,000-year-old cave paintings of Chauvet, matches Picasso at its best); or the virtuosity of execution may extend beyond the discriminatory powers of all but a very few viewers or listeners.
But, on the second, vernacular plane, excellent works must exude the potential to be felt as superior (albeit not fully known) to consumers with sufficient dedication and experience to merit the accolade of “fan.” A serious but untutored devotee of music in mid-eighteenth-century Leipzig should have been able to attend services at the Thomaskirche, hear the works of J. S. Bach, and recognize them as something weirdly, excruciatingly, and fascinatingly different from anything ever heard before. For the second criterion of virtuosity, a modern fan of opera might hear (as I did) Domingo, Voigt, and Salminan, under Levine and the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, in the first act of Die Walküre—and just know, without being able to say why, that he had heard something surpassingly rare and transcendent.
I think that all geniuses “out of time”—if they do not go mad—consciously construct their works on these two planes, one accessible to reasonably skilled aficionados of the moment, and one for Plato’s realm (and for possible future comprehension). Thus, on the vernacular plane, Bach had to accept whatever reputation (and salary) he could muster in his own time and parochial place by becoming the premier organ virtuoso of his age (a vain annoyance to many who hated the bravado and loathed the encrusting of beloved tunes with such frills of improvisation, but a source of awe and respect for the relative cognoscenti). Moreover, since Bach composed in an age that had not yet formulated our modern concept of the individual genius as an innovator, we cannot even know how he understood his own uniqueness—beyond observing that this superiority had not escaped his notice. Then, on Plato’s plane, Bach could write for the angels. And Darwin had to content himself with making an explicit division of his life’s work into a comprehensible vernacular plane for all educated people (the factual basis of evolution) and a second plane that even his most dedicated supporters could not grasp in all its subtle complexity (the theory of natural selection, based on a radical philosophy that inverted all previous notions about organic history and design).
This problem of composition on two planes becomes even more explicit and severe for any artist working in a genre designated as “popular” in our peculiar taxonomies of human creativity. The master of an elite genre does not aim for widespread appeal in any case—so the vernacular plane of his duality already permits a great deal of rarefied complexity (and his second plane can be as personal and as arcane as he desires). But the equal master of a popular genre must build his vernacular plane in a far more accessible place of significantly lesser complexity. How much higher, then, can his second plane ascend before the two levels lose all potential contact, and the work dissolves into incoherence?
Finally, I must preface my thoughts about Gilbert and Sullivan with one further and vital caveat. My confessed elitism remains entirely democratic—for structural rather than ethical reasons. (I happen to embrace the ethical reasons as well, but the structural claim embodies the premise that excellence cannot be achieved without such respect for the sensibility of consumers.) No person can achieve excellence in a popular genre without a rigorous and undeviating commitment to providing a personal best at all times. At the first moment of compromise—the first “dumbing down” for “easier” or “wider” acceptability, the first boilerplating for reasons of simple weariness or an overcommitted schedule—one simply falls into the abyss. (I rarely speak so harshly, but I do believe that this particular gate remains so strait, and this special path so narrow.) The difference between elite and popular genres bears no relationship whatever to any notion of absolute quality. This common distinction between genres is purely sociological. Excellence remains as rare and as precious in either category. The pinnacle of supernal achievement holds no more DiMaggios to play center field than Domingos to inquire about the location of Wälse’s sword.
And so, I simply submit that Gilbert and Sullivan have survived for the best and most defendable of all reasons: their work bears a unique stamp of excellence, best illustrated by its optimal and simultaneous functioning on both levels—on the vernacular plane of accessibility to all people who like the genre (for these works tickle the funnybone, delight the muse of melody, and expose, in a gentle but incisive way, the conceits and foibles of all people and cultures); and on Plato’s plane, by the most fiendishly clever union of music and versification ever accomplished in the English language. Moreover, since excellence demands both full respect and undivided attention to consumers at both levels, the uncanny genius of Gilbert and Sullivan rests largely upon their skill in serving these two audiences with, I must assume, a genuine affection for the different and equal merits of their product in both realms.
Sullivan has often been depicted as a man yearning to fulfill his supposed destiny as England’s greatest classical composer since the immigrant Handel, or the earlier native Purcell—a higher spirit tethered to a more earthly Gilbert only for practical and pecuniary reasons generated by the tables of Monte Carlo and his other expensive vices. Part of his character (a rather small part, I suspect), abetted by the sanctimonious urgings of proper society (especially after Victoria dubbed him Sir Arthur, but left his partner as mere Mr. Gilbert), pulled him toward “serious” composition, but love beyond need, and a good nose for the locus of his own superior skills, led him to resist the blandishments of “higher” callings unsuited to his special gifts.
Gilbert, though often, and wrongly, cast as an acerbic martinet, came to better personal terms with the genre favored by his own muse. He supervised every detail of staging, and rehearsed his performers to the point of exhaustion. But they honored Gilbert’s fierce commitment, and gave him all their loyalty, because they also knew his unfailing respect for their professionalism. Flaccid concord does not build an optimal foundation for surpassing achievement in any case.
The particular intensity of this “two level” problem for creating excellence in mass entertainment has always infused the genre—surely more so today (when the least common denominator for general appeal stands so low) than in Gilbert and Sullivan’s time, when Shakespearean references, and even a Latin quip or two, migh
t work on the vernacular plane. Chuck Jones, with Bugs Bunny and his pals at Looney Tunes, holds first prize for the twentieth century, but Disney, at his best, set the standard for works that function, without any contradiction or compromise, both as unoffensive sweetness for innocent children at one level, and as mordant and sardonic commentaries, informed by immense technical skill in animation, for sophisticated adults.
Gilbert’s drawing of his Sorceror, John Wellington Wells.
Pinocchio (1940) must rank as the first masterpiece in this antic style of dual entertainment. But Disney then lost the way (probably in a conscious and politically motivated decision), as saccharine commercialism, replete with pandering that precluded excellence at either level, enveloped most of his studio’s work. But a recent film rediscovered this wonderful and elusive path: Toy Story II, a sweet fable with brilliant animation for kids, and a rather dark, though still comic, tale for adults about life in a world of Scylla and Charybdis, with no real pathway between (leading to the ultimate existential message of “just keep truckin’.” Our hero, a “collectible” cowboy modeled on an early TV star, must either stay with the boy who now loves him, and resign himself to eventual residence and dismemberment on the scrap heap, or go with his fellow TV buddies, whom he has just met in joyous discovery of his own origins, to permanent display in Japan—that is, to immortality in the antisepsis of a glass display case).
I can only claim amateur status as an exegete of Gilbert and Sullivan, but I can offer a personal testimony that may help to elucidate these two necessary planes of excellence. My first book, Ontogeny and Phylogeny, traced the history of biological views on the relationship between embryological development and evolutionary change—and I remain committed to the principle that systematic alterations during a life span often mirror either a historical sequence or a stable hierarchy of fully developed forms at rising levels of complexity in our current world.
As stated at the outset, I fell in love with Gilbert and Sullivan at a tender age, and imbibed all the words and music before I could possibly understand their full context and meaning. I therefore, and invariably, enjoy a bizarre and exhilarating, if mildly unsettling, experience every time I attend a performance today. An old joke, based on an ethnic stereotype that may pass muster as a mock on a privileged group in an age of political correctness, asks why the dour citizens of Switzerland often burst into inappropriate laughter during solemn moments at Sunday church services. “When they get the jokes they heard at Saturday night’s party.” Similar experiences attend my current Sundays with Gilbert and Sullivan, but my delays between hearing and comprehension extend to forty years or more!
I know all the words by childhood rote, but I couldn’t comprehend their full cleverness at this time of implantation. Thus I carry the text like an idiot savant—with full accuracy and limited understanding because, although now fully capable, I make no conscious effort to ponder or analyze the sacred writ during my daily life. But whenever I attend a performance, I enjoy at least one “Swiss moment” when I listen with an adult ear and suddenly experience a jolt that can only induce an enormous grin for exposing human folly by personal example: “Oh yes, of course, how stupid of me. So that’s what those words, which I have known and recited nearly all my conscious life, actually mean.”
At this point I must highlight an aspect of this argument that I had hoped to elucidate en passant, and without such overt pedantry. But I have failed in all efforts to achieve this end, and had best bite the bullet of embarrassing explicitness. I do, indeed, intend this primary comparison between the vernacular versus Plato’s plane as two necessary forms of excellence, and between my differing styles of childhood and adult affection for Gilbert and Sullivan. But I am, most emphatically, not arguing that the vernacular plane bears any legitimate analogy to any of the conventional descriptions of childhood as primitive, undeveloped, lesser, unformed, or even unsophisticated.
(If I really thought, in any conscious part of my being, that the vernacular character of my “popular” writings on science implied any disrespect for my audience or any adulteration of my content, I could not proceed because excellence would then lie beyond my grasp by inherent definition—and my personal quest for the two planes of this goal provides my strongest conscious motivation for this aspect of my career. Good popular writing in science builds an honored branch of our humanistic tradition, extending back to Galileo’s composition of both his great books as accessible and witty dialogues in Italian, not as abstract treatises in Latin, and to Darwin’s presentation of the Origin of Species as a book for all educated readers.)
I only compare childhood’s love with the vernacular plane of excellence because both base their accurate perception and discernment upon the immediacy of unanalyzed attraction—and many forms of our highest achievement do lie beyond words, or even beyond conscious formulation, in a realm of “knowing that” rather than “stating why.” For example, I first saw Joe DiMaggio play when I was eight years old, but already a reasonably knowledgeable fan of the game. I knew, with certainty, that his play and presence surpassed all others. But I had probably never even heard the word grace, and I surely could not formulate any concept of excellence.
Thus, I know that Gilbert and Sullivan fulfill excellence’s primary criterion of full and simultaneous operation on two planes because I have experienced them both, and sequentially, during my own life—and this temporal separation permits me to untangle the different appeals. Some intrusions of adult understanding upon childhood’s rote strike me as simply funny, not particularly illustrative of anything about excellence, but worth mentioning to set a context and to potentiate my full confession. Failure to understand does not inhibit—and may actually abet—rote memorization or unconscious infusion.
As one silly example, I recently attended a performance of H.M.S. Pinafore, and had my Swiss moment during Josephine’s aria, as she wrestles with the dilemma of following her true love for a poor sailor or making an advantageous union with Sir Joseph Porter, “the ruler of the Queen’s navy.” She says of her true love, Ralph Rackstraw, “No golden rank can he impart. No wealth of house or land. No fortune save his trusty heart. . . .” And the proverbial light-bulb finally illuminated my brain. I did not know the meaning of “save” as “except” at age eleven. At that time I remember wondering how fortune could “rescue” Ralph’s admirable ticker—but I never resolved the line, and didn’t revisit the matter for forty-five years.
Some little examples in this mode even prove embarrassing, and therefore ever so salutary in the service of humility for arrogant intellectuals. In Iolanthe, for example, the Lord Chancellor berates himself for mistaking a powerful fairy queen for an insignificant schoolmarm:
A plague on this vagary,
I’m in a nice quandary!
Of hasty tone with dames unknown
I ought to be more chary;
It seems that she’s a fairy
From Andersen’s library,
And I took her for the proprietor
Of a Ladies’ Seminary!
Now, and obviously on the second plane, part of Gilbert’s literary joke lies in his conscious distortion of words to force rhymes with others that we properly stress on the penultimate syllable—especially “fairy,” the key to the entire verse. But I didn’t know the correct versions behind many of these distortions—and I pronounced “vagary” on the second syllable, thus exposing my pretentiousness, until a bit of auditory dissonance led me to a dictionary only about ten years ago!
As operative examples of the two planes—and of Gilbert and Sullivan’s achievement of excellence through their unparalleled success in both domains, without disrespect for the vernacular, or preciousness on the upper level—consider these Swiss moments of my sequential experiences in music and text. I have relished my unanalyzed vernacular pleasure all my life, but I now appreciate the surpassingly rare quality of these works all the more because, in my maturity, I have added a few glimpses upon the depth and unique
ness of their dual representation.
Sullivan, to cite some examples in just one aspect of his efforts on the second plane, had mastered all major forms of the classical repertory. He especially appreciated the English roots and versions of certain styles. Nothing can surpass his elegant Handelian parody in Princess Ida, when the three irredeemably stupid sons of King Gama seek freedom from mechanical restriction before a battle by removing their armor, piece by piece, as Arac intones his formal melody to the graceful accompaniment of strings alone (“This helmet, I suppose, was meant to ward off blows”). And, still speaking of Princess Ida, Sullivan took an ultimate risk, and showed his genuine mastery, when he wrote a truly operatic aria of real quality (“Oh goddess wise”) to accompany Gilbert’s delicious spoof of Ida’s serious pretensions. Durward Lely, who played the tenor lead of Cyril in the original production, said of this aria, “As an example of mock heroics it seems to me unsurpassable.” The composer, in modern parlance, really had balls.
Whenever Sullivan wrote his parodies of classical forms, he did so for a wickedly funny, and devastatingly appropriate, dramatic reason. But his device must remain inaccessible unless one knows the musical style behind Sullivan’s tread on the higher plane. Still, the songs work wonderfully on the vernacular plane, even when a listener cannot grasp the intended musical joke because he does not know the classical form under parody. This I can assert with certainty, albeit for a limited domain, because I loved and somehow caught the “specialness” of the following two songs in my youth, but didn’t learn about the musical forms (and thus recognize the parody) until my adult years, and even then didn’t understand the intended contextual joke until a much later Swiss moment.
Even at age ten, I would have identified the trio (“A British tar is a soaring soul”) as my favorite song from Act I of Pinafore. I knew that Gilbert’s text described this song as a “glee,” but I knew no meaning for the word besides “mirth,” and therefore did not recognize his citation of a genre of unaccompanied part songs for three or more male voices, especially popular in eighteenth-century England (and the source of the term “glee club,” still used to describe some amateur singing groups).
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