Speaking of definition, the June/July 1990 Trumpet Bray included a startling revelation about paying royalties for Sullivan's arrangements for the G&S operas. The article reads: ROYALTIES FOR G&S PERFORMANCES? Concord Players is planning a non-traditional Pinafore, (see "What Cheer! Elsewhere" for details). . .the project has run into a peculiar glitch. When Producer Bill Butcher contacted first the Rogers & Hammerstein Collection at the Lincoln Center Library and then Schirmer's, looking for a rental of standard-edition orchestral and chorus parts on which to base [Director James Quinn's] research, he was told that he would have to pay, in addition to the rental fee, a ROYALTIES fee (in R&H's case, a fee of $180 per performance). On his protest, to the Schirmer's representative, that NOBODY EVER pays royalties to produce G&S, he was told that EVERYBODY IS WRONG, and that royalties should in fact be paid for every performance -- presumably to G. Schirmer & Co. . . Does anybody know for sure what the royalty situation really is with the G&S operas? Does someone hold the copyright to the operas? and if so, who should be getting the royalties? (or did Gilbert and Sullivan figure out a way to "take it with them"?). If anyone has any definite information, please do pass it on. Bill Butcher {(508) 369-9526}, the New England G&S Society {(617) 623-3069), and (of course) The Midwestern Gilbert and Sullivan Society {(708) 859-2918} want to hear about it! (Here we have both a question and an answer: The August/- September 1990 issue of the Trumpet Bray explained the situation: it turns out, as Dan Kravetz of the New York G&S Society, and our own Ralph MacPhail Jr. explain, that the reason places can charge royalties for G&S opera scores is becazuse they don't have Sullivan's original score. They have arrangements of those scores, whose creators still may be entitled to royalties, even if the composer is not. The Rodgers & Hammerstein collection has the versions created for Peter Murray (those presumably used on the "Greatest Operettas of Gilbert & Sullivan" record set), and who knows who put together the scores Schirmer wants royalties for. The Trumpet Bray includes a list of sources for scores and such, and if anyone needs that sort of information, we'll put it in the next Nonsense. By the way, the editor of the TB, Marion Leeds Carroll, had heard that John Philip Sousa supposedly made an arrangement of the orchestra score to Pinafore. S/A Cole can assure her that she heard correctly: copies of it are available for study at the Library of Congress (a microfilm of the conduct- ors' score and a microfilm of the orchestra parts), and at the Mitchell Library of the State Library of New South Wales (Australia--the orchestra parts). Sullivan is supposed to have heard Sousa's score, and was impressed with it, too. [This article appeared in Issue 27 (September 1990) of Precious Nonsense, the newsletter of the Midwestern Gilbert & Sullivan Society. Posted by permission of Sarah Cole, Society Secretary/Archivist. For information on Society membership write to: The Midwestern Gilbert & Sullivan Society, c/o Miss Sarah Cole, 613 W. State St., North Aurora, IL 60542-1538.]