1842 -- 1900
SIR ARTHUR SEYMOUR SULLIVAN, one of the greatest composers of comic opera, was born in London on May 13, 1842. His father, a bandmaster, soon discovered that his son was unusually gifted: At the age of eight, Arthur could play tolerably well on almost every instrument in the band. When, therefore, Arthur finished four years of preliminary academic study at a private school in Bayswater, he received an appointment as a member of the Chapel Royal school. He possessed a striking voice, and was frequently called upon to sing solos. More important, however, is the fact that during his three years as a chorister he composed many anthems and songs, one of which was sufficiently talented to reach publication in 1855.
By 1856, Sullivan was promoted to the rank of "first boy" in the Chapel choir. He had shown such adaptability for music study that, when announcement was made that a Mendelssohn prize had been inaugurated, he was tempted to become a candidate. When the examinations were over it was discovered that, of the nineteen applicants, he was tied with one other young musician for first award-the other student being Joseph Barnby, later a wellknown conductor. A second test was inaugurated to decide between these two applicants; from this, Arthur Sullivan emerged the victor. As a result, Arthur Sullivan became a pupil at the Royal Academy of Music where his teachers included Goss and Sterndale Bennett. He remained there until the Fall of 1858. During this period, he composed an overture which was performed at one of the concerts of the Academy.
On leaving the Royal Academy of Music, Arthur Sullivan went to Leipzig to enroll in the Conservatory. Under Hauptmann, Plaidy, Moscheles and Richter, he made rapid strides toward musical maturity. A string quartet and an orchestral overture, The Light of the Harem--both of which were performed-attested to his growing strength as a composer.
Leipzig was an allimportant influence in Sullivan's artistic development, as he himself recognized. "I often try to think what would have become of me had I never come to Germany," he wrote in a communication home. "In England there was very little more for me to learn. I had heard and knew well almost all the small stock of music which is ever performed in London (and it is very little compared to what one hears here!). I should have made very little improvement in pianoforte playing, whereas now, thanks to Messrs. Moscheles and Plaidy, I am a tolerably decent player." In Leipzig, too, Arthur Sullivan first tried his hand at conducting, with a certain measure of success.
Early in 1862 he was back in London. On April 15, his orchestral suite to Shakespeare's The Tempest was performed at the Crystal Palace with so much acclaim that Sullivan found himself a muchdiscussed composer. Charles Dickens was one of the celebrities at the concert. After the performance the distinguished novelist approached Sullivan and said: "I am not a music critic, but I do know that I have just listened to some very remarkable music." Some months later, Sullivan visited Paris in the company of Dickens. While there, he met Rossini for whom he played parts of his Tempest, to the enthusiasm and delight of the great composer.
The next few years saw Sullivan's prestige as a composer mounting rapidly. In 1863, after a visit to Ireland, he composed his Symphony in Eflat (more familiarly known as the Irish symphony) which, upon its first performance at the Crystal Palace in March of 1866, was a decided success. The same year, the death of his father inspired him to compose his orchestral overture, In Memoriam, featured at the Norwich Festival. Other important performances of his works included that of his Concerto for violoncello and orchestra at the Crystal Palace, on November 24, 1866, his orchestral overture Marmion by the Royal Philharmonic Society on June 3, 1867, an oratorio, The Prodigal son, at the Worcester Festival of 1870 and several shorter hymns and songs, the most famous of which are Onward, Christian soldiers and The Lost chord.
At this same time, Arthur Sullivan was successfully holding two positions as organist in London. Between 1874 and 1887 he expanded his activities by officiating regularly as conductor of the Leeds Festival and the Royal Philharmonic of London. From 1876 to 1881 he officiated as principal of the National Training School in London.
But it was not in serious music that Sullivan attained immortality, even though his religious music achieved tremendous popularity. For, as Isaac Goldberg wrote of Sullivan's religious music, "sweetness it has and light; never power, never depth, never loftiness." As a matter of fact, what Percy Fitzgerald wrote of Sullivan's oratorios might very well apply to the bulk of Sullivan's serious works, including his opera Ivanhoe. They are, wrote Fitzgerald, "excellent, scholarly works, but they seem to lack inspiration and are academical in style and treatment."
It was, rather, in efforts which Sullivan took less seriously, which, so to speak, he considered his musical slummings that Sullivan achieved greatness. In the lighter vein of song, Sullivan proved himself to be incomparable.
His first effort in this direction came in 1867, Cox and Box, based upon a famous farce of Madison Morton's. However, it was not until Sullivan met his great collaborator, W. S. Gilbert, that he came into his own as a composer of comic opera. In 1871, Sullivan was introduced to Gilbert by a singer, Fred Clay; it was not long before an enterprising impresario, John Hollingshead of the Gaiety Theatre, commissioned the pair to compose a comic opera for his theatre. Thespis was the first of the Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas. While they were merely groping in this first collaborative effort, it was clearly disclosed that they were bringing comic opera into new territories. Trial by Jury came in 1875, the first of their operas to be composed for Richard D'Oyly Carte, the impresario who was responsible for their greatest achievements; and Trial by Jury-with its stinging satire on law-definitely proved that both composer and librettist had found themselves and each other. From this time on, their collaborative efforts were to be a "marriage of true minds," one of the most felicitous wedlocks of music and libretto that the history of operas has known.
In 1876, Richard D'Oyly Carte formed his own comicopera company, and on November 17, 1877 launched his new venture with The Sorcerer of Gilbert and Sullivan. The Sorcerer was followed, six months later, by Pinafore, which played for two years to crowded and enthusiastic houses. That was the beginning of the Gilbert and Sullivan craze. In 1879, Gilbert and Sullivan came to America in order to protect their copyrights, which were being flagrantly stolen. While in this country, they introduced their Pirates of Penzance at the Fifth Avenue Theatre. The Pirates took New York by storm.
Meanwhile, D'Oyly Carte was erecting a new theatre, the Savoy, henceforth the home of the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta. To inaugurate the opening of the Savoy, Patience-that pungent attack on Oscar Wilde-was performed under the baton of Arthur Sullivan. Its success was tempestuous. A few months later, Arthur Sullivan was knighted by Queen Victoria.
After this, each new Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera was more successful than its predecessor. Iolanthe came in 1882, Princess Ida in 1884, The Mikado in 1885, Ruddigore in 1887, the Yeomen of the Guard in 1888 and The Gondoliers in 1889.
In analyzing the scores which Sir Arthur Sullivan composed for these operas, Thomas Frederick Dunhill discovers the following outstanding characteristics of Sullivan's style in the lighter vein:
1. his avoidance of any manufactured music,
2. his complete unpretentiousness,
3. the unaffected simplicity and striking lucidity,
4. his pungent sense of humor and satire which "almost invariably are coexistent with a sense of beauty," and
5. his genius "for abounding provision of good melodies."
Cecil Forsyth points out still another quality, which he considers most important of all, namely Sullivan's "recognition of the fact that it was not only necessary to set his text to music which was pleasing in itself, but to invent melodies in such close alliance with the words that the two things become indistinguishable.... In this respect, Sullivan did more for the English stage than any musician of his time."
In his scores, Sullivan is rarely the experimenter or innovator; he does not blaze new tonal trails. "He used no harmonies that composers before him had not used over and over again," wrote T.F.Dunhill. "His melodies were perfectly proportioned in an unorthodox way, and he seldom attempted to arrest our attention by oddities of shape or rhythm. His orchestration, skilful and pat as it invariably is, was never in the least degree experimental. And yet, within such circumscribed limits, his art is always recognizable for its personal quality. The Sullivan touch is unmistakable and can be felt instantly."
It was after the composition of The Gondoliers that the famous rupture between Gilbert and Sullivan took place, a rupture that had been pending for several years. They had not been harmonizing so smoothly in their personal relationship as they had in their artistic alliance. Each ridiculed the pretenses and poses of the other; each was slightly envious of the acclaim the other received; and each was not above criticizing the other. The final breach, it is said, was caused by the cost of a carpet for the Savoy. The expenses of the Savoy Theatre were to be shared by Gilbert, Sullivan and D'Oyly Carte equally. Carte had purchased a new carpet for his theatre at a price exceeding $500, an expenditure which Gilbert thought unforgivable. A squabble between Gilbert and Carte ensued. At first, Sullivan was neutral in the dispute. Then, when Gilbert demanded to know his position, Sullivan said he was on the side of Carte. There followed hot and ugly words; Gilbert relieved himself of some ugly epithets. Shortly afterwards Gilbert wrote his historic note to Sullivan: "The time for putting an end to our collaboration has at last arrived. In accordance, therefore, with the contents of my note to you of this morning, I am writing a letter to Carte (of which I enclose a copy) giving him notice that he is not to produce or perform any of my libretti after Christmas 1890. In point of fact, after the withdrawal of The Gondoliers, our united work will be heard in public no more."
In 1893, however, the rift was momentarily cemented. Once again, Gilbert and Sullivan collaborated on a comic opera. Utopia Limited was a success, though both Gilbert and Sullivan realized that in this work neither one had succeeded in recapturing his former genius. One more collaborative effort saw the light of day, The Grand Duke in 1896. With that opera, the most famous collaborators in musical history called it a day.
Sullivan's last works were an opera, Ivanhoe, which came in 1891, and three more operettas (to none of which Gilbert supplied a libretto). The last of these operettas, The Emerald Isle, was never finished by Sullivan, but was brought to completion after his death by Sir Edward German.
Ivanhoe was Sullivan's most ambitious creation, the one upon which he expended most energy and devotion. "Sullivan wrote Ivanhoe, so to speak, with his lifeblood," we are informed by Herman Klein. "He slaved at it steadily from May until December, and put into it only of his best. For weeks before he finished it he was inaccessible; the Christmas of 1890 was no holiday for him." Despite all this devotion to his task, Ivanhoe was a dismal failure when it was given its first performance. And it failed dismally only because Sullivan as an artist had failed. "Ivanhoe," as Percy Fitzgerald pointed out, "was certainly a ponderous work, more like a vast symphony protracted thru several acts of an opera." Nor can it be said that Sullivan did not know that he had missed the mark. In Dr. Isaac Goldberg's The Story of Gilbert and Sullivan we are informed that Reginald De Koven, the American composer, attended the performance of Ivanhoe and told Sullivan that he liked the opera very much, indeed. "That's more than I do," was Sullivan's retort. "A cobbler should stick to his last."
The last years of Sullivan's life were a drab contrast to the former years of glory and splendor he had known. He drifted to Monte Carlo where he indulged in extravagant gambling and dissipation of energy. His health, moreover, had disintegrated: he was almost in perpetual pain, and his face had become haggard and deeply lined thru the overuse of morphine. It was a shabby close to a brilliant career; and no one realized this more forcefully than Sullivan himself.
His last days were spent in an agony which not even morphine could relieve. In the Fall of 1900 he caught a chill. Bronchitis set in, and his already weakened heart could not withstand the strain. Sir Arthur Sullivan died in London on November 22, 1900. It was a lonely death. None of his formerly close friends or associates was at his bedside. Gilbert, who was on the Continent, heard of his former collaborator's death thru the morning newspaper. D'Oyly Carte was sick in bed, too sick to be told of Sullivan's passing. It is a curious phenomenon, however, that Carte, from his bedside, saw thru the window a funeral cortege pass. It was Sullivan's funeral, but Carte had no way of knowing it. "After it had gone by, some one went to D'Oyly Carte's room and found him out of bed and prostrate by the window. Asked what he was doing there he replied, 'I have just seen the last of my old friend, Sullivan.'" Four and a half months later, D'Oyly Carte followed his friend to the grave. W.S.Gilbert died on May 29, 1911.
B. W. Findon has described Sullivan as follows: "His face impressed at once, because it was the outward indication of the sweetness of his nature. The wide but somewhat low forehead and the pallor of his complexion were relieved by the eyes which were brimful of sensibility and radiant with quiet humor.... But soft and mild as were his eyes, there was a straight forward look in them which indicated the resolution of the man, and this trait was enhanced by the strength of the nose and chin. . . . Though below medium height, and with a figure inclined to corpulence, he carried with him a suggestion of dignity and power that were at once recognized. . . . His voice was musical and persuading, and he had a pleasing directness of speech which never failed to reach its mark. His personal charm was infinite."
Composition came easily to Sullivan. As Hesketh Pearson explained: "Many of his melodies came to him in the noise and bustle of a social crush, when he would pull out a notebook and commit them to paper. He scored with great rapidity, smoking cigarette after cigarette and chatting without effort to the visitor of the moment."
Extravagance was one of his most characteristic traits as a personality. Money came easily to him, and he spent it with reckless abandon, a fact which often irritated the more frugal Gilbert. As Gilbert once said: "My cook gets eighty pounds a year and gives me kipper. Sullivan's cook gets five hundred pounds a year for giving him the same thing in French." Amiability and generosity endeared him to all of his friends. He was, like all gamblers, hopelessly superstitious. He believed in hoodoos, lucky stars and lucky days. He was an inveterate smoker, drank copiously and lived richly and fully.
It should not be forgotten that, together with Sir George Grove, Sir Arthur Sullivan discovered the lost partbooks of Franz Schubert's Rosamunde as well as forty songs never before printed. Spurred on by a hint in the Life of Franz Schubert by Kreissle von Hellborn, Grove and Sullivan had come to Vienna in 1867 and there found the musical treasure, dusty and forgotten, in the attic of a Dr. Schneider.
Principal works by Sir Arthur Sullivan:
OPERAS: Ivanhoe; The Beauty Stone; The Rose of Persia; The Emerald Isle; Cox and Box; Trial by Jury, The Sorcerer, H.M.S. Pinafore; The Pirates of Penzance; Patience; Iolanthe; Princess Ida, The Mikado; Ruddigore; The Yeomen of the Guard; The Gondoliers; Utopia Limited.
BALLET: L'lle enchantiée, Victoria and Merrie England.
ORCHESTRA: Irish symphony; The Sapphire Necklace overture; In Memoriam; Di Ballo overture; Marmion; Concertino for violoncello and orchestra, Marches, incidental music to plays by Shakespeare, Tennyson, etc.
CHORAL: The Prodigal Son; The Light of the World; The Martyr of Antioch; Kenilworth, On shore and sea, The Golden Legend; Festival Te Deum; morning service; anthems, hymns; Fifteen partsongs.