Music: For Savoyards

For faithful fans of William Schwenck Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan, it should be soothing as “Basingstoke.”* Its name is A Treasury of Gilbert & Sullivan (Simon & Schuster; $5), and it consists of 102 songs from eleven operettas, with music, illustrations and critical commentary.

New arrangements by Dr. Albert Sirmay bring the songs into amateur range, with the melody always in the piano part. (Composer Sullivan never bothered with such simplicities.) Drawings by Lucille Corcos diagnose the modest pose of the Gilbert & Sullivan characters, with a full page in color for each operetta. Deems Taylor wrote the commentary in his best mike style. The book is meat for the aristocrat who banks with Coutts, and the aristocrat who cleans the boots, if they happen to be Savoyards.

* The word that always calmed Mad Margaret in Ruddigore.