Vanity Fair Print
of Arthur Sullivan
March 14, 1874
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Who was the Sullivan in Gilbert & Sullivan ?
(From a March, 2003 MWOS news release published in
The Informer)
Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan, composer, was born in London, May 13, 1842. His
bandmaster father soon discovered his son was unusually gifted. By age eight,
Arthur could play competently on almost every instrument in the band. After
four years study at a private school in Bayswater, he received an appointment
as member of Chapel Royal school. Having a striking voice, he was often
asked to sing solos, he also composed many anthems and songs, one reaching
publication in 1855.
He enrolled at the Royal Academy of Music, remaining until 1858, and composed
an overture during this period, performed in a concert at the Academy. After
the Royal Academy, Sullivan went to Leipzig, Germany, enrolling in the
Conservatory, and was greatly influenced there toward musical maturity.
Back in London, 1862, his orchestral suite to Shakespeare's The Tempest
was performed at Crystal Palace, April 15, with much acclaim. Distinguished
novelist Charles Dickens was one of the concert-goers, and approached
Sullivan saying, "I am not a music critic, but I do know that I have just
listened to some very remarkable music." They became friends and later
travelled to Paris together. In Paris he met Rossini for whom he played parts
of his Tempest, to the great composer’s delight.
In 1863, after visiting Ireland, he composed his Symphony in E flat
(aka The Irish Symphony) which became a great success after its first
performance at Crystal Palace, March, 1866. The same year, his father's death
inspired him to compose the orchestral overture, In Memoriam, featured
at the Norwich Festival. Other important performances of his works include
Concerto for Violoncello and Orchestra at Crystal Palace, November,
1866; his orchestral overture Marmion by Royal Philharmonic Society,
June, 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.
Sullivan was also successfully holding two positions as organist in London.
Between 1874 and 1887 he officiated as conductor of the Leeds Festival and
the Royal Philharmonic of London, and from 1876 to 1881 he officiated as
principal of National Training School, London. But it was not in serious
music that Sullivan attained immortality, it was in the comic operas he
composed to Gilbert's librettos.
In 1871, Sullivan met Gilbert through singer, Fred Clay, then impresario,
John Hollingshead, of Gaiety Theatre, commissioned them to compose a comic
opera for his theatre. Thespis was the first G&S operetta.
Trial by Jury came in 1875, the first operetta composed for Richard
D'Oyly Carte, the impresario responsible for their greatest achievements, and
with its stinging satire on law, proved that both composer and librettist had
found themselves in a "marriage of true minds."
In 1876, D'Oyly Carte formed his own comicopera company, and in November, 1877
launched G&S' The Sorcerer. Six months later H.M.S. Pinafore
was presented, and played with great acclaim for two years.
In 1879, G&S went to America to protect their copyrights, which were being
flagrantly stolen. Whilst in U.S. they introduced The Pirates of Penzance
at the Fifth Avenue Theatre, taking New York by storm. After The
Gondoliers the famous rupture between G&S occurred, caused by the cost of
a carpet at D'Oyley Carte's Savoy Theatre.
Sir Arthur Sullivan died a lonely death in London, November 22, 1900 after
many years of ill-health and unbearable pain that not even morphine could
relieve.
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