This project is dedicated to my son Martin:
May his dreams be always bright.
This is a re-release of the incidental music originally published under the title The Music to J.M. Barrie’s Successful Play “Peter Pan.” or, The Boy who wouldn’t Grow Up. I know of two published versions of the score. The first can be found on the U.R. Research site at http://hdl.handle.net/1802/24425, and is a scan of the 1905 W. Paxton & Co. printing, OCLC 21828857, with 70 pages of piano music. The second can be found on Google Books at https://books.google.com/books?id=J-wQAAAAYAAJ, and is a scan of the Price & Reynolds / Jos. W. Stern & Co. printing, OCLC 903862906, from the Harvard College Music Library collection, with only 40 pages of music. The incidental music to the deleted scene “The arrival of the beautiful mothers”, as found in the 40-page editions, has in the longer version been renamed “Ent’racte” (sic).
(There’s also OCLC 221973102, 70 pages long and publisher listed as Price & Reynolds. Whether this is a different version or a catalog error I do not know.)
This project is typeset using the LilyPond typesetting system, and intended for eventual inclusion in the Mutopia Project: http://www.mutopiaproject.org/ or on GitHub at https://github.com/MutopiaProject/MutopiaProject.
I have been told (on the LilyPond users mailing list) that this score has the characteristics of a piano reduction. The Theatre Communications Group’s American Theater, volume 20 (2003) makes passing mention of an 80-page version of this score which “contained much intrumen[tation]”. I have not found any other reference to such an instrumental score; any information on the subject would be much appreciated.
There was apparently a defined “Peter Pan: Selections” published somehow, (possibly the source for the recordings mentioned below but that’s just a guess). The National Library of Australia has a version in its Flynn collection, http://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/4086045, OCLC 225705957; the University of Pittsburgh Music Library has a version in the Mirskey collection, http://pittcat.pitt.edu/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?BBID=4855755, OCLC 156956598; see also OCLC 144569049 and the British Library’s http://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/display.do?doc=BLL01004288305, OCLC 497759088.
The NLA’s “J.C. Williamson collection of performance materials” also has “unpublished and manuscript materials” at http://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/3293635, OCLC 224405859, including several folders of music. Some of this music is from other versions of the play, but possibly some is fuller versions of John Crook’s score. Further information would be very welcome.
There have been very few recordings of this music.
In 1929 the J.H. Squire Celeste Octet recorded “selections”, released by Columbia Gramophone as a two-sided 12″ 78 RPM disk, catalog number 9768.
In 1940, in the second year of the London Blitz preventing performances of the play, there was something of a cast recording made, with Jean Forbes-Robertson as Peter, Dinah Sheridan as Wendy, and Gordon Harker as Captain Hook; the orchestra was conducted by Clifford Greenwood. This was released as His Master’s Voice #9119.
Sepia Records #1037, “100 Years of Peter Pan”, includes both those recordings.
There is also His Master’s Voice #2693, another set of “selections” performed by the London Palladium Orchestra under the direction of Richard Crean, also released as a two-sided 12″ 78 RPM disk, but which was not included on the Sepia Records CD.
(Thank you to Bruce Hanson, author of Peter Pan on Stage and Screen, 1904–2010, for the above information.)
There seems also to have been another release by The Gramophone Company of “selections” performed by the Mayfair Orchestra under the direction of G[eorge] W. Byng; see OCLC 78037569 and OCLC 82063754 for all the information I’ve found about this recording.
More recently, for Christmas 1986 Glyn Dearman produced for the BBC a radio-play version of Peter Pan, later in 1989 (or 1992? online information is inconsistent) released as an audio recording: OCLC 472769196 or OCLC 32502966. This 2 cassette recording, released together with a book, OCLC 655603058, was subtitled, “The Original Play and Music”. Alec McCowen narrated (as J.M. Barrie), with Robert Lang as Mr. Darling & Capt. Hook, Joanna David as Mrs. Darling, Lucinda Bateson as Wendy, and Graham McGrath as Peter Pan. John Crook’s music was performed by the BBC Concert Orchestra under the direction of Chris Walker. This is a fairly straight adaptation of the script to radio-play format, and the music is beautifully arranged though of course it’s abridged so the dialog can be clearly heard.
Similar to the Sepia Records collection, Delos Music released DE3201, “An Awfully Big Adventure: The Best of Peter Pan (1904–1996)”. Three tracks are of John Crook’s music, all of them new arrangements: “The Arrival of Wendy”, “The Song of the Pirates”, and “The Fight and Overthrow of the Pirates”.
The copyright status of Peter Pan is somewhat odd; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_and_Wendy#Copyright_status. In particular, note that performance of the story within the U.K. requires payment of royalties to the Great Ormond Street Hospital as a continuation of J.M. Barrie’s 1929 gift of the copyright to GOSH.
I have confirmed with GOSH that John Crook’s score was never included in this gift (the copyright would have belonged not to Mr. Barrie but to Mr. Crook or perhaps the Duke of York’s Theatre). Since John Crook died in 1922, the score is out of copyright at least in the U.S.A. and E.U.