Gilbert and Sullivan Archive
Eyes and No Eyes

Florian Pascal


The music for Eyes and No Eyes was originally written by German Reed, but when this music was lost a new score was composed by Florian Pascal. The following information is from The Encyclopedia of the Musical Theatre by Kurt Gänzl.

PASCAL, Florian [WILLIAMS, Joseph] (b London, 1850; d London July 1923). Victorian composer and music publisher.

The son of the important music publisher Joseph Williams, and himself a member of the board of the family firm, Florian Pascal was a fluid composer of parlour music and light theatre works in an attractive if scarcely very individual style. His theatre ventures did not earn him celebrity, in spite of his being in the right places at almost the right times. He combined with Harry Paulton on Cymbia in 1882, but it was Bucalossi (Manteaux Noirs) in the same year and Jakobowski a few years later with Erminie who profited by the author's best comic libretti. He was the composer of The Vicar of Wide-awake-field, the piece which heralded the coming of the new burlesque at the Gaiety, but when the inaugural Little jack Sheppard followed, he contributed only five numbers to a score organized by Meyer Lutz, and it was Lutz who went on to score the famous series of burlesques. He did, however, have the consolation that every piece he wrote, whether produced professionally or by amateurs or not at all, and some, such as Gilbert's Eyes and No Eyes which he had not written, but for which he composed a fresh score, was published.

1883 Cymbia, or the Magic Thimble (Harry Paulton) Royal Strand Theatre 24 March
1885 The Vicar of Wide-awake-field, or The Miss-Terryous Uncle (Henry Pottinger Stephens, William Yardley) Gaiety Theatre 8 August
1887 Gipsy Gabriel (Walter Parke, William Hogarth) Theatre Royal, Bradford, 3 November
1890 Tra-la-la Tosca, or The High-Toned Soprano and the Villain Bass (F C Burnand) Royalty Theatre 9 January
1896 The Black Squire (Stephens) Torquay 5 November
1897 The Golden Age (Henry Byatt) 1 act Savoy Theatre 5 July





Page created 19 August 2004