Three songs from "Thespis"

Settings of some early WS Gilbert songs.

"Thespis" was WS Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan's lost opera. First performed in December 1871, it never enjoyed the popularity of the later Savoy Operas. No vocal score was ever published and, with a couple of exceptions, the music has been lost. The text and music of "Climbing over rocky mountain" made a re-appearance a few years later in "Pirates of Penzance", and sheet music for "Little maid of Arcadee" surfaced some time afterwards. Whether Sullivan recycled the music from "Thespis", as he once joked, is unknown. Even if he did not do so explicitly, it would not be too surprising if there were not at least some echoes of the forgotten score in his later compositions.

There have been various attempts to revive "Thespis", sometimes using music from other G&S works, but none has been truly successful. These three songs were part of a project to re-create a score in Sullivan's early style.