LIONEL MONCKTON

'Lionel John Alexander Monckton' (18 December 1861 - 15 September 1924) was an English writer and composer of musical theatre. He was Britain's most popular musical theatre composer of the early years of the 20th century.

Contents

Life and career

Early life

Contributor to musicals

Peak years

After World War I

Principal shows and original runs:

Recordings

Notes

References

External links

Life and career

Early life

Lionel Monckton was born in London, the son of town clerk, Sir John Monckton, and Lady Monckton, an actress. He was educated at Charterhouse School and at Oxford University, where he composed music for amateur productions. He initially joined the legal profession, but gained part-time work as a theatre and music critic, first for the ''Pall Mall Gazette'' and, later for the ''Daily Telegraph''. At the age of 29, in 1891, he finally managed to place a song in a professional musical show co-written with lyricist Basil Hood.

Contributor to musicals

Monckton soon became a regular composer (and sometimes lyricist) of songs for the musical comedies performed at London's Gaiety Theatre, under the management of George Edwardes, which premiered throughout the 1890s and into the first decade of the 20th Century. Among others, he wrote half of the music for Arthur Roberts's burlesque ''Claude Du-Val'' (1894) and supplemented Ivan Caryll's score for ''The Shop Girl'' in the same year, with such successful pieces as George Grossmith, Jr.'s "Beautiful Bountiful Bertie" and "Brown of Colorado" (with Adrian Ross), for ''The Circus Girl'' in 1896 ("A Little Bit of String" and "The Way to Treat a Lady") and for ''A Runaway Girl'' in 1898 ("Soldiers in the Park", "Society", "The Sly Cigarette", "The Boy Guessed Right" and "Not the Sort of Girl I Care About").
In 1902 he married Gertie Millar, one of the most successful actresses of the period, who starred in many of Monckton's shows. The "Girl" musicals were followed by a number of "Boy" musicals: ''The Messenger Boy'' in 1900 ("Maisie", "In the Wash", and "When the Boys Come Home Once More") and ''The Toreador'' in 1901 ("Captivating Cora", "I'm Romantic", "When I Marry Amelia", "Keep Off the Grass", and "Archie"). Monckton's songs became very popular and continued to be performed long after the shows closed--some of them remaining popular into the 1960s.
Monckton also contributed songs for shows playing at Edwardes's Daly's Theatre, which tended more towards romantic comedies, than the light musicals presented at the Gaiety. Often, for Daly's Theatre, he collaborated with Sidney Jones, including on the hits ''The Geisha'' in 1896 ("Jack's the Boy" and "The Toy Monkey"), ''A Greek Slave'' in 1898 ("I Want to Be Popular", "I Should Rather Like to Try", and "What Will Be the End of It?"), and ''San Toy'' in 1899 ("Rhoda and Her Pagoda", and "Sons of the Motherland"). He also continued as co-composer of, or contributor to, many successful shows with Caryll and others. Monckton's music was generally arranged and orchestrated by his skillful assistant, Carl Kiefert.

Peak years

Finally, in 1902, Edwardes gave Monckton the opportunity to compose his first complete score, ''A Country Girl'' (key songs were "Molly the Marchioness", "Try Again, Johnny", and "Under the Deodar"). He also continued to contribute successful songs to other musicals, including ''The Orchid'' in 1903 ("Liza Ann", "Little Mary", "Pushful", and "Fancy Dress"). The success of ''A Country Girl'' led to another musical with Monckton as principal composer, ''The Cingalee'' in 1904. Although the piece was successful, French operettas then became the fashion at Daly's Theatre, and Monckton went back to composing music for others' shows.
Further collaborations included ''The Spring Chicken'' in 1905 ("I Don't Know, But I Guess", "Alice Sat By the Fire", and "Under and Over Forty"), ''The New Aladdin'', in 1906 and ''The Girls of Gottenberg'' in 1907 ("Two Little Sausages", "Rheingold", and "Berlin on the Spree"). These songs were among the most widely played and sung numbers of the contemporary light musical theatre. A last success at the Gaiety was ''Our Miss Gibbs'' in 1909 ("Moonstruck", "Mary", "In Yorkshire", and "Our Farm").
After that, Monckton had his greatest success, in collaboration with Howard Talbot and the lyricist Arthur Wimperis, with ''The Arcadians'', in 1909. ''The Arcadians'' was possibly Monckton's best score^[1] and became popular in America and elsewhere, with songs such as "The Pipes of Pan", "The Girl with the Brogue", and "All Down Piccadilly".
This was followed by the successful ''The Quaker Girl'', in 1910 ("The Quaker Girl", "Come to the Ball", and "Tony from America"), ''The Mousmé'' in 1911 ("I Know Nothing of Life", "The Little Japanese Mamma", "The Temple Bell", and "The Corner of My Eye") and ''The Dancing Mistress'' in 1912. The latter two pieces had merely respectable runs. Monckton's last big hit was ''The Boy'' in 1917 (produced after Edwardes's death), a musical-comedy version of Pinero's 1885 play, ''The Magistrate'' ("I Want to Go to Bye-Bye", "The Game That Ends with a Kiss", and "Powder on Your Nose"), a vehicle for comedian Bill Perry who had been the star of ''High Jinks''.

After World War I

Later, Monckton contributed to some revues, but he had little enthusiasm for this and other new forms of musical entertainment. Unwilling to adapt his style of writing to the newly popular dance rhythms and 'noisy numbers' that were seen in theatres, Monckton ceased composing.
Monckton died at the age of 62 and is buried in Brompton Cemetery, London.^[2]

Principal shows and original runs:

★ ''A Country Girl''. (1902) - 729 performances

★ ''The Cingalee''. (1904) - 391 performances

★ ''The Spring Chicken''. (1905) - 401 performances

★ ''The Girls of Gottenberg''. (1907) - 303 performances

★ ''Our Miss Gibbs''. (1909) - 636 performances

★ ''The Arcadians''. (1909) - 809 performances.

★ ''The Quaker Girl''. (1910) - 536 performances

★ ''The Boy''. (1917) - 801 performances
This list includes only the shows where Monckton was the principal composer. Many of the shows to which he contributed songs also had very long runs.

Recordings

''The Arcadians'' has been recorded in excerpt form on LP and complete on CD by Ohio Light Opera. Recordings by Gwen Catley and Marilyn Hill Smith of numbers from ''Our Miss Gibbs'' and ''The Quaker Girl'' have been issued on CD. The first CD recording dedicated to selections of Monckton's works (also including music by Howard Talbot and Paul Rubens) was released by Divine Art in 2003: ''The Monckton Album'' by Theatre Bel-Etage chorus and orchestra, conductor Mart Sander. Selections from ''The Arcadians, The Quaker Girl'' and ''The Cingalee'' are featured on this recording.

Notes

1. Article describing ''The Arcadians'' as the masterpiece of Edwardian musical comedy
2. Brompton Cemetery website

References

★ Traubner, Richard. ''Operetta: a theatrical history'' (2003) Routledge ISBN 0415966418

★ Monckton Biography

★ Info re: Monckton shows

External links

★ Information about recordings of songs from Monckton shows

★ Reviews of recordings of Monckton works

★ Midi files

★ Edwardian musicals website

★ Listing of English musicals with links

★ IBDB's list of Monckton shows that ran in New York