A book that gathers together some of Gilbert and Sullivan’s best-loved choruses, which people can use as the basis for a G&S concert, sounds such a great idea that it’s a wonder it hasn’t been done before.

Now, thanks to the combined skills of broadcaster/conductor Brian Kay and G&S expert Robin Wilson, Gilbert and Sullivan Choruses has finally come into being — and soon operatic and choral societies up and down the country will probably be wondering how they managed without it.

Robin said: “There have been three or four books of G&S choruses, but they’ve always been solos or ensembles arranged as choruses. I suppose they felt if you wanted the original you could go back to the original scores, but that wouldn’t be as convenient.”

Robin started working on a G&S choruses book nearly 30 years ago but, as he admits, “it all sort of fizzled out”.

He and Brian resurrected the idea over lunch at the English Music Festival in Dorchester, and within a remarkably short space of time it came to fruition.

Inevitably, deciding what to include and what to leave out proved something of a headache. “We didn’t want things that had too much solo in them,” says Robin. “So we couldn’t have things like the Major General’s Song, which is mainly a solo with bits of chorus. Another one is The Soldiers of our Queen from Patience, which is followed by a long solo. It’s great fun to sing on stage, but I don’t think it would work as a single item in a concert. So that went out as well.”

What they have included, though, is at least one chorus from every opera in the G&S canon, including from the little-known Utopia Ltd (the stirring Eagle High in Cloudland Soaring) and The Grand Duke.

There are also many of the most popular choruses, such as the magnificent Peers’ Chorus from Iolanthe, Dance a Cachucha from The Gondoliers, If You Want to Know Who We Are and Comes a Train of Little Ladies from The Mikado and Over the Bright Blue Sea from HMS Pinafore. In all, there are 28 choruses, plus one of Sullivan’s many part-songs, The Long Day Closes.

“The idea was to encourage people to put together little scenes,” explains Brian. “There are all sorts of possibilities for making up scenes, rather than just having one chorus after another, and it gives choral conductors great opportunities to use their programming skills. To help them, each opera is introduced by a page where we give a bit of history on how and why it was first produced, a bit of the story and then an introduction to the choruses that are included. So it means anyone organising a programme doesn’t need to go off and do research, because it’s all there.

“Another reason why I think the book will serve a useful purpose, particularly for choral societies and chamber choirs, is for them to liven up a bit and do a bit of acting.

“When I was with the Cheltenham Bach Choir we did a jazz evening with George Shearing, and once they’d done some jazz with a real jazz musician, their Bach rhythms were absolutely transformed.”

The book was officially launched last month at the International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival in Buxton, and will have another launch in Oxford this weekend, with a concert at St Peter’s College chapel.

Members of the Oxford Pro Musica, Oxford Operatic Society and Oxford University G&S Society will be joined by professional singers Alastair Thompson, Leon Berger and Simon Butteriss. Conducting and narrating duties will be shared by Brian Kay and Oxford Pro Musica conductor Michael Smedley.

As with the book, the concert features numbers from every opera — even Thespis, most of which was lost after its original run in 1871 — and includes a mixture of solos and choruses, some familiar, some less so. Signed copies of the book will be available at a reduced price.

“Sullivan was a great choral writer,” says Brian. “They are wonderful choruses — they are so beautifully written, and completely singable.”

An Evening of Gilbert and Sullivan is at St Peter’s College, Oxford, on Saturday. For tickets, call 01865 278872 or email jean.wright@spc.ox.ac.uk.

* Gilbert and Sullivan Choruses is published by Novello & Co at £14.95.