Three Deleted Songs from Iolanthe - Marc Shepherd

Marc Shepherd

SubscribeSign in

Three Deleted Songs from Iolanthe

Marc Shepherd<br>May 06, 2026

15

Share

Note: For updates since this post , click here.<br>On a recent research trip to London, I found three deleted songs from Iolanthe, hiding in plain sight in the British Library. All of them are certainly unheard since the 19th century. I wasn’t looking for the songs and it’s just good luck that I found them. You can download the full score and vocal score. Links to MP3 sound files are provided below.<br>The three songs are:<br>“On you they’d set a coronet ,” a quartet in Act I for Phyllis, Lord Tolloller, Lord Mountararat, and the Lord Chancellor. It goes between the present No. 8 (“My well-loved Lord and guardian dear”) and No. 9 (“Nay, tempt me not”).

“My love for him is dead ,” a ballad in Act II for Phyllis, after “Oh, foolish fay.”

“De Belville was regarded as the Crichton of his age ,” a song in Act II for Lord Mountararat before “Though p’r’aps I may incur your blame.”

The songs are in a manuscript full score, copied from Sullivan’s autograph at around the time of the 1882 premiere. Such scores aren’t unusual—they exist for many of the operas. But this is the only one I’ve seen that has significant material no longer in the autograph itself.<br>Sullivan’s usual practice was to discard songs not retained in the opera, with a handful of exceptions. One of these is from Iolanthe: Strephon’s “Fold your flapping wings,” which is bound at the back end of his manuscript. I can’t tell you why he kept that one.1 But clearly this manuscript copy score was made before Sullivan made his other deletions.<br>The score was in the D’Oyly Carte organization until their archive was sold to the British Library in 2015. I suspect the company did not know its significance. The BL catalogue description for this score doesn’t clearly say that the lost songs are in it—if it had, I am sure others would’ve found them, since it has been there for over a decade. On top of that, the score is misfiled—it is not under the shelf mark where the catalogue says it should be.2<br>Lost Gilbert & Sullivan songs aren’t often discovered: finding three at once is like sighting a unicorn. I believe the last one was “Reflect, my child,” the duet from H.M.S. Pinafore found almost thirty years ago by Bruce I. Miller and Helga J. Perry. But that song was in band parts, which were incomplete and lacked the vocal line. Miller & Perry attempted a reconstruction, and perhaps they came close, but we don’t really know how Sullivan set it.<br>This Iolanthe full score has the orchestration and vocal parts for the three songs. Other than finding them in Sullivan’s hand, we can hardly have hoped to do better. I found the songs a week ago. I was determined to release them as quickly as I could. On returning home, I immediately entered them into Dorico.<br>The sections below also provide links to MP3 sound files, so you can listen along. I recommend following a score as you do so. The sound files give a general idea of the songs, but they don’t capture every nuance of the orchestration, and I didn’t spend much time fiddling with dials to get every dynamic perfectly balanced. The sound files are between 3.5 and 5.25 megabytes apiece.<br>I haven’t generated band parts yet, because I didn’t want to take any more time before publishing this. If you want to include any of the songs in a production or a concert with orchestra, just let me know.<br>I’ve tried to be as accurate as possible in the time frame: I believe a week from discovery to publication is unusually speedy. I’ve probably made mistakes along the way. If you want to perform the songs, they’re of course royalty free, but I’d appreciate a heads-up that you’ve done so. And please alert me to any errors you find.<br>Helga Perry wrote the definitive study of Iolanthe’s gestation in her 2005 M. Phil. thesis for the University of Birmingham, which you can download from academia.edu. I highly recommend it. The thesis covers the history of these deleted songs and many others in copious detail. I’m not going to repeat what Helga has already done so well, but I offer below a brief history and my observations about the songs.<br>Thanks for reading! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

Subscribe

Quartet: “On you they’d set a coronet”

Sound file: here<br>After the present No. 8 (“My well-loved Lord and guardian dear”), the Lord Chancellor originally had a recitative, as follows:<br>Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published Nay, do not recklessly refuse their proffer—<br>Attend to the advantages they offer!<br>This very short recitative is in Sullivan’s autograph, marked cancelled. He didn’t remove it because it shares the page with material that he kept. Although not new, I have included this recitative in my draft, since it clearly was designed to lead into the quartet.<br>What follows is an ensemble with chorus, in which the Peers tell Phyllis...