Sir Arthur Sullivan, 1842-1900

 

 

                          Sullivan's Life and Work

 

On May 13, 1842 in Lambeth, London, Arthur Seymour Sullivan was born into a family with musical leanings. His father made a scratch living teaching music, playing in a theatre orchestra, and copying scores: later, as a competent string, woodwind and brass teacher he became bandmaster at Sandhurst College. It therefore comes as no surprise that his son soon learnt to play all wind instruments from piccolo to bassoon before his teens. At the age of eight Arthur had composed his first anthem and this opened the door to a church schooling. Sullivan became a chorister of the Chapel Royal (St James's Palace) where he often sang solo parts.

At the age of 13, Sullivan composed a sacred song, "O Israel", so good it was published by Novello. At 14, he won a Mendelssohn scholarship to study at the Royal Academy of Music and later at the renowned Leipzig Conservatorium. There he developed a musical style which was influenced by close exposure to Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Schubert, Schumann, Liszt, Weber, and Lortzing. In London, he would have grown up having heard the music of Michael William Balfe whose operas were frequently playing at Drury Lane and Covent Garden. Whilst working for Boosey & Co., he edited operas of Auber, Balfe, Bellini and Donizetti and so is it any wonder that some of his comic opera settings are deliberate pastiches of these popular composers?

Little of Sullivan's very early compositions survive, yet a Leipzig concert piece, The Tempest, was so well received that he refined it for further performances when he returned to England. George Grove of dictionary fame and mentor of the 22 year old Sullivan arranged a Crystal Palace performance of The Tempest to take place. The critics loved it. This early success brought an association with H F. Chorley, a writer and critic with whom he wrote a four act opera, The Sapphire Necklace. Perhaps this was too ambitious or may be it was due to Chorley's poor libretto rather than a lack of quality in Sullivan's music. Its music has been lost yet its overture, one song "Over the Roof", and madrigal "When love & beauty" have survived.

Sullivan embarked on the work that was to make his name, the lightweight operettas and comic operas, particularly once he had teamed up with William S. Gilbert and these pre occupied him for many years. However, he had not lost his ambition to compose serious opera and, in 1891, D'Oyly Carte's plan to open a Royal English Opera House  to perform new English opera presented Sullivan with his opportunity. Sullivan decided on Sir Walter Scott's novel, Ivanhoe and, as Gilbert refused to have anything to do with the venture, chose Julian Sturgis to write the libretto. Although it ran for an unprecedented 155 consecutive performances (see here for more background), its success did not prove durable and Sullivan retreated to more familiar territory and was never to make another such attempt.

 

Recordings of Sullivan's Works

Commercial Opera Recordings

The Beauty Stone. Complete. The BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Rory Macdonald, 2013. This Chandos recording (CHAN 10794 (2)) is the first fully professional recording of the opera and features Elin Manahan Thomas, Toby Spence, Rebecca Evans, Catherine Wyn-Rogers and Alan Opie.  See here for more details.

 

Ivanhoe. The BBC National Orchestra of Wales, David LLoyd-Jones, 2010. This Chandos record (CHAN 10578(3)) is the first fully professional commercial recording of Ivanhoe and features a fine cast including Janice Watson, Toby Spence, Catherine Wyn-Rogers and Geraldine McGreevy. The recording is dedicated to the memory of Richard Hickox who was instrumental in getting the project off the ground. See here for more details and here for a review.

Ivanhoe. The Prince Consort, David Lyle, Pearl SHE CDS 9615, 1991.  This was the only previous recording commercially available.

There are many recordings of  Sullivan's comic operas and operettas, see here and here for extensive lists.

Non-operatic works

Sullivan wrote a considerable amount of other music including a symphony, a cello concerto, incidental music, overtures, oratorios and songs.  See here for a list.

On Shore & Sea and Kenilworth

The recording by Victorian Opera NorthWest of Arthur Sullivan's forgotten cantata, On Shore & Sea (1871) together with the masque Kenilworth (1864) was released in July 2014 on Dutton CDLX 7310, conducted by Richard Bonynge, AC CBE. Soloists Sally Silver, Nico Darmanin, Louise Winter, Donald Maxwell were joined by the John Powell Singers. See here for details of these works.

Sullivan on the web

The main resources on the web are the web sites for the Sir Arthur Sullivan Society and the Gilbert and Sullivan archive.  There is an extensive article at Wikipedia.   Recordings made in 1888 of a short greeting from Sullivan to Edison and of his song "The Lost Chord" can be found in the Wikipedia article.  

 

Books on Sullivan

There are several books both on Sullivan.  The most authoritative is probably Arthur Sullivan: A Victorian Musician by Arthur Jacobs, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986 (later editions may be by other publishers). Older books include Sir Arthur Sullivan by Percy M. Young, London: J.M.Dent & Sons Ltd., 1971 and  The Music of Sir Arthur Sullivan by Gervase Hughes, London: Macmillan & Co Ltd., 1959.