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.
Commercial
Opera Recordings
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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