An Evening Wasted with Tom Lehrer The lyrics of "The Elements" are a recitation of the names of all the chemical elements that were known at the time of writing, up to number 102, nobelium. It can be found on his albums "Songs & More Songs by Tom Lehrer" as well as "An Evening Wasted with Tom Lehrer". The song is sung to the tune of Sir Arthur Sullivan's "Major General's Song" ("I am the very model of a modern major-general...") from "The Pirates of Penzance". Since that time, 16 more have been discovered. At his concert in Copenhagen (1967), Lehrer admitted, "I like to play
Gilbert and Sullivan place a piece like this on the stage in so complete a fashion." The opera enjoyed a run longer than any of their other joint works except for "H.M.S. Pinafore", "Patience" and "The Mikado". There was a command performance of "The Gondoliers" for Queen Victoria and the royal family at Windsor Castle in 1891, the first Gilbert and Sullivan opera to be so honoured. "The Gondoliers" was Gilbert and Sullivan's last great success. Gilbert and Sullivan sometimes had a strained working relationship, partly caused by the fact that each man saw himself as allowing his work to be subjugated to