Full text of "THE MUSIC OF ARTHUR SULLIVAN"

103770

THE MUSIC
OF

ARTHUR SULLIVAN

GERVASE HUGHES

M.A., B.MXJS, (OXON.)

NEW YOB.K

ST MARTIN'S PRESS INC
1960

01*

FOREWORD

ANYONE wishing to make a fair assessment of Arthur Sullivan's
contribution to music faces some initial obstacles. Although
even detractors concede that his orchestration is admirable,
comparatively little of his considerable output has been pub-
lished in full score ; a list would include about half the choral
and orchestral works, but only three out of twenty-two com-
pleted operas. 1 Most of the music on which his popularity
depends is thus not readily available except in piano arrange-
ments, which sometimes give an incomplete or even misleading
idea of the composer's intentions. Of the rest much is out of
print, and at least half a dozen large-scale works have never
been published at all.

My warm thanks are therefore due to Miss Bridget d'Oyly
Carte, to Sir Ernest Bullock (Director of the Royal College of
Music), to Messrs. Charles Russell & Company (Solicitors) and
to Mr. Howard G. Dunkley (a trustee of the late Herbert
Sullivan's estate), through whose courtesy I have had the oppor-
tunity of consulting orchestral manuscripts not normally access-
ible. This has enabled me to discuss Sullivan's scoring in
greater detail than would otherwise have been possible and to
quote from unpublished works which have not been played
within living memory and can rarely have been studied, but
which nevertheless have their significance in his development.

1 Viz. H.MS. Pinafore with a German text entitled Amor an Bord (LitolfF), The
Mikado (Bosworth) and Ivanhoe (Chappell). For many years it was believed that
all copies of Amor an Bord had been lost or destroyed, but one was recently traced
in the United States and is now in the British Museum. Students will find a few
discrepancies, for it accords with the original vocal score which was sent to the
printers well before the first performance ; later editions incorporate Sullivan's last-
minute alterations.

vi THE MUSIC OF ARTHUR SULLIVAN

Research that might well have been tedious was expedited by
the co-operation of the staff at the d'Oyly Carte office, headed
by Mr. Frederic Lloyd and Mr. Stanley H. Parker ; I am
grateful to them for their hospitality as well as for much
useful information.

An adequate acknowledgment of "what I owe to Dr. Eric
Blom would have caused him acute embarrassment ; today,
unhappily, I write with no fear of offending his modesty.
Though the debt cannot be paid I can at least record the ob-
ligation. As a firm friend he encouraged with generous en-
thusiasm my proposal to analyse the qualities of a composer
who occupied a small but warm corner in his own affections ;
as a fine scholar he drew my attention to features I might
otherwise have overlooked. Later, he read the typescript and
made a host of pertinent suggestions ; many were argued over
in conversation or correspondence, the discussions being en-
livened by his learned, witty, outspoken pronouncements on
topics that ranged far beyond the matter in hand. Had Eric
Blom lived to read the little book he helped on its way, he
might from time to time have murmured * De gustibus . . . *,
but I think he would have been pleased to light on a phrase
here or a comment there which could be promptly traced
back to those stimulating exchanges.

GERVASE HUGHES

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE

I. INTRODUCTORY i

n. THE FIRST PERIOD 8

Comparative Chronological Table of First Performances 18

III. SULIIVAN AND GILBERT 19

IV. RHYTHM AND WORD-SETTING 28
V. HARMONY A FEW SIGNPOSTS 44

VI. HARMONY TONALITY AND MODULATION 52

VII. HARMONY USE OF CHROMATIC IDIOM 64

VDDL COUNTERPOINT 73

IX. VOCAL WRITING 84

X. ORCHESTRATION 96

XI. SULLIVAN AS MELODIST 119

THE OVERTURES 130

A MIXED BAG 142

(Sense of drama Characterisation Pastiche
Furbishing up of old material Distinctive features
of Princess Ida Tricks of Italian opera Parody
Humour.)

Chronological Table of Sullivan's Contemporaries 154

XIV. A GATHERING OF THREADS 155

INDEX TO SULLIVAN'S COMPOSITIONS 169

GENERAL INDEX 177

* Die Natrur miisste zerbersten, wollte sie lauter BeetKovens
ROBERT SCHUJVLAJSTN, Die neue Zeitschrift, Vol. 7

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY

THE shelves of our public libraries are loaded with books about
the Gilbert-and-SuUivan operas written by men and women
justly proud of their association with the author, the composer,
or the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company which has upheld the
tradition. Some of them are quite entertaining, and in the
store-house of trivial recollection, society gossip and dressing-
room tittle-tattle, one occasionally comes across an iUuminating
anecdote. But sentences like * Gilbert said he quite agreed with
me' and 'Sir Arthur would not have stood it for a moment*
make the primum mobile all too clear.

Not all the bibliography, of course, falls into this category.
For instance, The Gilbert and Sullivan Operas, by H. M. Wai-
brook (1921), is a charmingly written, though rather super-
ficial synopsis. Gilbert and Sullivan, by A. H. Godwin (1926),
investigates their characteristics more thoroughly, but the
enthusiasm sometimes outruns objectivity. Another book with
the same tide by Hesketh Pearson (1935) is a penetrating study
of two conflicting yet complementary personalities. (Pearson's
Gilbert, his life and strife, published as recently as 1957, is largely
a development of the same theme, but it tells us little more
about Sullivan, either as man or collaborator.) The World of
Gilbert and Sullivan, by W. A Darlington (1950), although
mainly concerned with Gilbert's technique as a playwright,
contains a few shrewd comments on the music, as does Gilbert
and Sullivan Opera (1953) in which Audrey Williamson analyses
the 'tradition' ; her considered judgments on past and present

2 THE MUSIC OF ARTHUR SULLIVAN

standards of performance in both theatre and recording studio
are very much to the point.

Any musical criticism there may be in Sir Arthur Sullivan
by Herbert Sullivan (his nephew) and Newman Flower (1927)
is at second hand extracts from contemporary press reports,
etc. This is die 'official* biography ; it is useful for checking
references and includes an invaluable chronological list of
Sullivan's compositions compiled by a librarian of the British
Museum. The account it gives of his life and activities, how-
ever, is not sufficiently detached to carry conviction; the
relevant sections of Leslie Baily's well-documented Gilbert and
Sullivan Book (1952) give a truer picture of the composer's
character. The 'gossipy* and biographical books, taken col-
lectively, have done Sullivan a disservice by their lack of frank-
ness and in one connection at least their failure to preserve
a sense of proportion. While we learn far more than we need
to know about his student flirtations in Leipzig, his early and
unfortunate love-affair with Rosamund Barnett and his innocent
Indian summer with 'Miss Violet*, we find only a few references
mosdy very discreet to his long association with the
beautiful Mrs. Ronalds, who played a large part in shaping his
career from their first meeting in 1877 until his death in 1900.
It was she who encouraged him to devote his talents to operetta
rather than oratorio, who helped to smooth over many differ-
ences with Gilbert, who accompanied him to rehearsals and
auditions (where her presence was often resented by the
singers), and who remained at his side during the last pathetic
years when health and inspiration alike were failing. As guide,
philosopher and something more than friend, her influence
was tremendous. Hesketh Pearson and Leslie Baily, to their
credit, make no bones about the nature of the relationship,
and there should never have been any reason to pretend that it
was purely platonic.

INTRODUCTORY 3

Yet Sullivan the man has received faker treatment than
Sullivan the musician. As a matter of course his achievements
have been summarised in reference books and their value
estimated (differently) in various musical histories and encyclo-
paedias. From time to time, too, leading professional critics
have taken advantage of a revival or an anniversary to discuss
a particular work in detail or make a general reassessment.
So far, so good; when it comes to full-length studies it is
another story. The few publications that date round the turn
of the century, mostly written by personal acquaintances,
display so little true aesthetic insight and are so stuffed
with undiscriminating eulogy that they can be disregarded by
a serious researcher, Sullivan, by H. Saxe Wyndham (1926),
is admittedly a much better balanced appraisement, but
has die layman's approach and contains little perceptive criti-
cism. More recently we have had a discerning but all-too-
short monograph, Gilbert and Sullivan, written by Arthur
Jacobs in 1951 for the 'World of Music' series, and practical
instruction for aspiring musical directors (Training the Gilbert
and Sullivan Chorus, by William Cox-Ife, 1955). But only one
volume has appeared that is truly worthy of the subject
Sullivan s Comic Operas, by Thomas Dunhill, published in 1929.
Even this, as its tide implies, is limited in scope.

Like so many others before and since, Dunhill was led to
music by an early love for Sullivan (as a boy he attended more
than one "first night 5 at the Savoy), and he never lost his fervour.
When he entered the Royal College of Music in 1893 Sullivan's
old friend Sir George Grove was still Director, but under his
successor Dunhill found the surroundings less congenial. 'It
was considered scarcely decent to mention Sullivan's name
with approval in the building/ Dunhill stuck to his guns, and
when he later returned to the R.CJVL as a member of the
teaching staff he continued to fire them in an atmosphere that

4 THE MUSIC OF ARTHUR SULLIVAN

remained antipathetic Since those days thanks in no small

to his own marksmanship the climate of musical

opinion has warmed considerably towards Sullivan, so that

Dimhil's book suffers in retrospect from having been written

"mainly in defence* (to quote his own first chapter-heading).

Defence involved retaliation, and in his counter-attack on

Ernest Walker's notorious diatribe in A History of Music in

Ms bulets sometimes flew wide of the target. Here is

Walker:

Not infrequently (especially in the concerted music, such as the
madrigal from The Mikado) we have something which ... is the
work of a genuine and delicate-handed artist.

Commenting on this passage Dunhill doubts whether the
'well-known. Oxford musician . . . speaks from actual know-
ledge [since he finds nothing] worthy of praise in addition to
one little vocal quartet*. Now if words mean anything the
madrigal was not cited as an isolated instance but as an example
of tie artistic touch which the author found 'not infrequently '.
Again, Dunhill took strong exception to the contemptuous
expressions applied to Ivanhoe and the oratorios, but did he not
in his heart endorse them ? At any rate he went so far as" to
write : * We shall not determine the true importance of Sullivan
until we make up our minds to disregard his serious work
altogether*, when obviously what he meant was that for
Sullivan's sake he preferred to disregard it. And by taking short
extracts out of context he sought to prove Walker guilty of
*what is perhaps the most offensive crime of the critic, to
pronounce sentence of death without listening to evidence in
favour of the accused** Surely this was being as unfair to
Walker as Walker himself was to Sullivan.

That Walker was unfair is now almost universally acknow-
ledged. His faint praise was continually tempered with damn-

INTRODUCTORY 5

ing qualifications which let his prejudices out of the bag 'in
its trifling way*, 'in its slight way 5 , 'when he is at his test*, and
so on. It is a pity that Dunhill did not live to read J. A. West-
rap's revised version of A History of Musk in England, for he
would have enjoyed the humorous conceit which adapted
Walker's own phrases to reach an antithetical conclusion, thus
demonstrating the volte-face of the academic attitude,

Ernest Walker, revised [sic]
Ernest Walker (1907) by J. A. Westrup (1952)

The impress he has left on The impress tliat he left on one
one department of English music department of English music was
is undoubtedly very deep, undoubtedly very deep. The comic
though it may not prove lasting, operas written to the libretti of W. S.
The comic operas written to the Gilbert made his reputation and in-
Hbretti of W. S. Gilbert made deed form his chief tide to fame,
his reputation and indeed form Though we cannot forget that a con-
bis chief title to fame ; though slderable share of the success they
we cannot forget Low enormous achieved was due to the brilliant
a share of the success they en- sparkling wit of his collaborator, it
joyed was due to the brilliant has become increasingly evident that
sparkling wit of his collaborator, they survive by virtue of the music.

(One regrets that Professor Westrup saw fit to retain Walker's
cruel final paragraph, in which Sullivan is summarily dismissed
as *a popularity-hunting trifler*.)

But to return to Dunhill. If one can overlook the smarting
sense of vicarious injustice under which he laboured (and to
which from today's standpoint he would seem to have been
unnecessarily sensitive), one finds his self-styled * critical appre-
ciation' enthusiastic but unbiased, concise but not unduly com-
pressed, and scholarly without being touched by intellectual
snobbery. Unfortunately it is out of print, but it remains
with the possible exceptions of Jacobs' tiny treatise and Cox-
Ife's text-book the only work entirely devoted to Sullivan
written by a trained musician equipped with sincerity and

6 THE MUSIC OF ARTHUR SULLIVAN

discrimination. He succeeded admirably in presenting Sullivan
to the public as something more than a purveyor of pretty
tunes, and served his own profession well by proving that a
composer of light music was not necessarily unworthy of
being taken seriously.

DunhilTs achievement was that of a pioneer, a preliminary
skirmish in a campaign whose advance has yet to be imple-
mented. Today there may be few musicians for whom as
for Ernest Walker Sullivan is merely 'the idle singer of an
empty evening'; there are many who, while acknowledging
his great gifts, tend to take them for granted. One recalls
Schumann's curiously aloof attitude to Haydn : * he is like a
familiar friend of the house whom all greet with pleasure
and with esteem, but who has ceased to arouse any particular
interest *. But the new generation, though it may sometimes
look back in anger, prefers to look forward in hope ; Sullivan
has started countless young people along the enchanted road
that leads to the Elysian Fields, and they need not only
encouragement but help. The time is surely ripe for a compre-
hensive study of his musk as a whole which, while recognising
that the operettas 'form his chief tide to fame* will not leave
the rest out of account, and while taking note of his weaknesses
(which are many) and not hesitating to castigate his lapses from
good taste (which were comparatively rare) will attempt to
view them in perspective against the wider background of his
sound musicianship.

Those who find it difficult to thread their way through
technical kbyrinths will take short cuts, which need not preclude
the discovery that enjoyment of a Sullivan operetta, as of a
Beethoven symphony, can be heightened by knowing the
'how* and the 'why*, for Sullivan's adroit approach is well
worth attention, and in one or two respects his methods differ
from those of any other composer; therein, partly, lies his

INTRODUCTORY 7

genius. To relate his achievements to those of Mozart would
be ridiculous, and comparison with the later Verdi would not
redound to his advantage, yet thanks to his resource in such
matters lolanthe and The Gondoliers do belong to the world of
Cosl fan tutte and Falstaff not to that of Orphee aux enfers
and The Merry Widow.

This is a book about Sullivan's music ; all else is incidental.
To set the scene, however, Chapters II and III incorporate a
short biographical survey which will provide a chronological
basis for what follows. Readers who have vocal scores may
like to keep them handy for reference, for the operas will not
be separately summarised although each will be documented
in the index.

And now a word on the subject of generic nomenclature.
The collaborators themselves dubbed their offerings with a
fine disregard for consistency. 1 It would be better to agree
once and for all that they are in fact ' operettas *, and in this
commentary operettas they shall be, rather than 'comic
operas', -whenever it is necessary to differentiate the genre.
But in nine cases out of ten no such nice distinction is involved,
and to call them anything but * operas 5 would then be as
pedantic as to insist that Seraglio should always be a * Singspiel '
and Parsifal always a * music-drama * . In any case it is as * operas '
that Jf.M.S. Pinafore and The Yeomen of the Guard are part of
our national heritage ; long may they remain so.

1 Trial by Jury, for instance, was a * Dramatic Cantata* and Ruddigore an
'Entirely Original Supernatural Opera*. Abroad, misunderstandings arose; the
French musicologist Arthur Pougin, in the standard Biographie universelle des
musitiens (1880), wrote : *Entre autres ouvrages, on lui doit encore deux cantates :
lejugement dujury, et Sur terre et nor\ (For the latter, see page 16.)

CHAPTER II

THE FIRST PERIOD

ARTHUR SEYMOUR SULLIVAN was born at Lambeth, Lon-
don, on 1 3th May 1842. His parents were both of Irish descent
although not actually born in Ireland. His mother had Italian
blood in her veins, and it was from her that young Arthur
inherited his bkck hair, dark eyes and olive-tinted complexion.
His Ether, a clarinet-player and later a military bandmaster,
fostered his natural aptitude for music, taught him much about
orchestral instruments and arranged for his voice to be trained
at die Chapel Royal, where he was soon encouraged to try his
hand at composition. In 1856 he became the first holder of
the Mendelssohn Scholarship at the Royal Academy of Music.
His progress was so satisfactory that the committee also paid
Ms fees for two years at the Leipzig Conservatorium. In the
event he stayed in Germany a further six months at his father's
expense.

The only work of any consequence written during his
student days was the music for Shakespeare's Tempest, which
had its first performance at Leipzig in April 1861. As might be
expected, immaturity showed itself in a mixture of styles. The
introduction here and there suggests Beethoven.

Ex.1

Allegretto
^^

The third-act prelude and die Banquet Dance, though well

THE FIRST PERIOD 9

constructed, might have been written by any one of half a
dozen contemporary German composers, Jensen for instance.
The fourth-act prelude is a light-hearted compound of the last
movement of Schumann's first symphony and the first move-
ment of his last, with a sprightly second subject more Italian
than German in character thrown in for good measure
(see Ex. in, page 107). Finally, the Nymphs' and Reapers'
Dance (see Ex. 136, page 118) is a sparkling scherzo in the best
Mendelssohn tradition. Curiously there are few traces of
Schubert's influence in The Tempest Sullivan's mentors at
Leipzig were not very broad-minded; although they wor-
shipped Mendelssohn and admired Schumann, they despised
French music as effeminate and may have mistaken the frank
bonhomie of the Austrian 'upstart* for triviality, Sullivan out-
did them in his enthusiasm for Schumann, and after his return
to London was an ardent champion of that composer (whose
music had as yet made no impact in this country) ; if he ever
shared their views on Paris and. Vienna he soon made amends.

For the next six years he settled down to earn a living by
teaching and organ-playing. He had an attractive personality
and quickly established some useful contacts in the musical
and literary world, notably with George Grove (then secretary
of the Crystal Palace Concerts Society), H. R Chorley (the
leading music critic of the day), Michael Costa (director of
the Royal Italian Opera, Covent Garden) and F. C. Burnand
(editor of Punch).

With Chorley he started work on an opera, The Sapphire
Necklace, which was never completed (but see Ex. 70 on page
76 for a quotation). For Costa he wrote a ballet, L'lle
enchantee. Of two numbers only is there a (copied) manu-
script score in existence, but all the string parts still survive,
and, furthermore, some of the music was used over again in
later works, so that it has been possible to form an opinion on

THE MUSIC OF ARTHUR SULLIVAN

its quality as a whole. It is less pretentious and more homo-
geneous than The Tempest, but technically shows no advance.

Presently Sullivan succumbed to the spell of Schubert's
genius and Gounod's sensual charm. Both these influences can
be traced in the masque Kenilworth (words again by Chorley
but incoi^orating a good deal of Shakespeare), which was
produced at die Birmingham Festival of 1864. The most
ambitious item was a romantic duet 'How sweet the moon-
light sleeps upon this bank'. One stanza, beginning with the
words c L0ok, how the floor of heaven', is remarkable in that
it consists of four five-bar phrases, and the final section ('In
such a night as this') is freely rhapsodical. This was an excep-
tional effort, for in his early days the verses that Sullivan chose
to set to music generally stifled rather than stimulated his flow
of melody and aptitude for rhythmic originality. He was
imprisoned in a square cage of strophic restrictions from which
he rarely broke free, and Orpheus' Lute was never used to
better purpose than when it secured him a day's liberty.

Reverting to Kenilworth, mention must be made of the
Slow Dance, an early-eighteenth-century pastiche where Sulli-
van for the first time captured a truly English atmosphere.
Here is its ending note how the phrases fall into irregular
bar-lengths and resolve naturally in the characteristic over-
lapping 2/4 of the cadence.

*.2

THE FIRST PERIOD

In the introduction to his Symphony in E (1866) the same
cross-rhythm appears in very different guise; this time one
thinks of Schumann again, perhaps even of Brahms, whose
early compositions (including the D minor piano concerto)
Sullivan had doubtless heard in Germany.

Ex.3

Vlns.

Unfortunately the first subject proper, a violin cantabik of
soaring promise, falls to pieces at the seventh bar. (It shows its
paces satisfactorily in the development section, however.)

Ex.4 Allegro, na non troppo vivace
ll

Although the second subject is a mere fragment, sonata form
is competently handled, and the whole movement, if rising to
no great heights, comes up to one's expectations. The lyrical
second movement, where an expressive theme is inadequately
supported by a rather jejune accompaniment, is in B major ;
a long oboe solo (see Ex. 103, page 103) links it with the third,
which eventually gets off the mark in the unrelated key of C
major. This has the unconventional formal pattern ABCA
c the scherzo from Tchaikovsky's no. 4 with a tiny coda
based on B to round things off. (A and B are in 2/4 time, C
in 3/4.) The naive melodies are rigidly four-square, and in one
of them the echo of Schubert is almost comical (Ex. 5).

THE MUSIC OF ARTHUR SULLIVAN

r r T y r TT ^

The lively tripping measures of the finale tend to outstay their
welcome, perhaps because the orchestration is less skilful than
usual, with the melodic interest largely confined to the first
violins. In spite of the promising first movement and a
modicum of competent thematic development, the symphony
caimot be counted as a satisfactory achievement. Too much of
the material is machine-made as yet we find few signs of
true spontaneity.

Perhaps only once during Sullivan's youth did music really
come from the heart when a few months after the symphony
the sudden death of his father impelled him to pour forth his
feelings in the In Memoriam overture. The superscription is
misleading, for at the head of a published work it implies
commemoration of an event more widely significant than a
family bereavement, however distressing. The music is indeed
purely subjective ; Sullivan might be able to convey his mental
reaction in terms of crotchets and quavers but it was beyond
his powers to project an emotional experience into the con-
sciousness of a detached audience. After all, he was only
twmty-four, and if the opening melody strikes a sophisticated
ear as being inadequately expressive of even personal grief,
there is no need to laugh at those who find its obvious sincerity
rather touching. Taken as a whole, In Memoriam has a solid
dignity that is quite impressive ; it deserves to be played now
and again, but emphatically not pace Sir Henry Wood

THE FIRST PERIOD 13

to mark Remembrance Day or on solemn occasions of national
mourning.

To this period, too, belong the Cello Concerto (a manu-
script I have been unable to locate) and the Marmion overture,
which is as substantial as In Memoriam and rather reminiscent
of Mendelssohn's Ruy Bias, though less obviously ingratiating;
it might well bear revival, for the orchestration is exceptionally
fine see Ex. 93 on page 99.

In 1867 Sullivan wrote two miniature operas with Burnand
as librettist The best numbers from Cox and Box and The
Contrabandista have an engaging simplicity that suggests Offen-
bach, but neither would be remembered had he not later
enjoyed such triumphs in the same genre. At the time he took
far more seriously his visit to Vienna with George Grove. At
the back of a dusty cupboard in the house of a certain Dr.
Schneider they found the manuscript parts of the Rosarnunde
music, much of it given up for lost, which had lain there
undisturbed since its production forty-four years earlier.
Sullivan's share in this discovery gave him lasting pleasure.

Soon he gave up his organist's post, for by this time he had
lighted on a more lucrative occupation the turning out of
anthems, hymn-tunes, part-songs and above all drawing-room
ballads, for which there was evidently an insatiable demand.
The space taken up by such trifles in a list of his compositions
for the years 1867 to 1874 inclusive is out of all proportion to
their worth. There is a nostalgic charm about Oh hush thee,
my baby and The long day closes, which are still popular with
small choral societies, but it is to be hoped that Adelaide
Procter's elusive Chord has now been Lost for ever. As for
such deplorable effusions as Sad Memories, Looking back and
Once Again, the very titles save us from the necessity for com-
ment, since they are only too indicative of the depths to which
Sullivan could fall when he wanted to keep his pot on the boil.

14 THE MUSIC OF ARTHUR SULLIVAN

He pulled himself together for The Window (1871), a song-
cycle with words by Tennyson, in which he once more acknow-
ledged his debt to Schubert with the simple but entirely
satisfying arpeggio accompaniment of 'Gone', and an occasional
characteristic modulation. Here are a few bars from * On the
hill'.

Ex.6

J. iJ J|J

AM y ttoogfals are as quick, are as quick run-ning on, run-mag on-

His finest work of these years, and indeed one of the best
pieces of light music ever written for orchestra alone, is the
captivating Di Balk overture (1870). Nothing quite like it
has ever happened before or since ; it is as clear-cut as the over-
ture to Lagazza ladra y as tuneful as the overture to The Merry
Wives of Windsor, as varied as the overture to Die Fledermaus,
as exuberant as Espma, as refined as Masques et bergamasques,
as vital as Cockaigne. If Sullivan did not achieve Rossini's
classical touch, Nicolai's savoir-faire, Johann Strauss' rhythmic
verve, Chabrier's orchestral brilliance, Faure's subtlety or
Elgar's technical mastery, he nevertheless here first carved his
name on die pedestal of fame. For all the overture's familiarity
one point sometimes escapes notice that the scintillating
gdop is a syncopated metamorphosis of the graceful waltz that
has done such excellent duty as second subject in the preceding
sonata-form section. The first subject from the symphony
(Ex. 4, page n) should be compared with this theme from Di
Batto, which starts very similarly and is also a twelve-bar phrase,
but which maintains interest instead of allowing it to lapse
note especially the effective sforzando on an unaccented bar.

THE FIRST PERIOD

Ex.7

etc.

Few of the other early orchestral works require comment.
The incidental music to The Merchant of Venice (1871) includes
a bourree which is another pastiche, longer, more elaborate
and better known than the Slow Dance from Kenilworth, and
a waltz which successfully recaptures for a few moments the
mood of Di Ballo. (There is a short quotation from the bourree
in Ex. 68 on page 75 and from the waltz in Ex. 118 on page
109.) Presently Sullivan's commitments began to pile up, and
and it was with reluctance that in 1874 he consented to provide
music for another Shakespearean production, The Merry Wives
of Windsor. Eventually this was limited to the scene in Windsor
Forest which other composers, before and since, have found
a fruitful source of inspiration. Sullivan, pressed for time,
lifted great chunks from L'lle enchantee for the purpose, but in
one of the few new numbers (Ex. 8a) he caught the magic
of the atmosphere and actually foreshadowed Verdi's treatment
(Ex. 8b).

Ex.Sa Chorus

Pinch him and burn him and turn him a - bout, Pinch, him and burn him and

J J. [i

j j |j. j j i

turn him

1 *j A;

a - bout,

y i

Pinch

him and

burn him and

16 THE MUSIC OF ARTHUR SULLIVAN

(FalsUff,A.ctni)

Bz-zi-ea, pis-zi-ea, fimgMa via- tuz-zo-la! piz-zi-ca, piz-zi-ca^ Tung-Ma vin-tuz-zo- la!

In serious concerted music lie had yet to find his feet. It
is in vain that we search the pages of The Prodigal Son (1869)
for any sign of initiative ; one of the first choruses is a setting
of the words 'Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die', and
as we wade through the rest of the work, half-submerged in a
bog of conventional cliches, this strikes us as having been sound
advice. The Light of the World (1873) is not much better, but
the orchestral interlude entitled 'Pastoral Symphony' possibly
deserves to be rescued from its surroundings. Whatever to-
day's judgment may be, however, these oratorios and the
mildly picturesque cantata On Shore and Sea (1871) were
suited to the fashion of their time, and Sullivan soon became
a popular figure in high society, hob-nobbing on terms of
equality with the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Edinburgh,
the ex-Empress Eugenie, et hoc genus omne,

But the most important event of this period was his meeting
with W. S. Gilbert, six years his senior and akeady well known
as die author of Bab Ballads and several plays. Their first joint-
offspring, Thespis (1871), survived for only a month or two ;
nearly all the music has been lost. In 1875, however, a very
shrewd impressario Richard d'Oyly Carte by name per-
suaded the two men to collaborate again in a one-act piece to
share the bill with Ofienbach's La Ptrichole. Trial by jury was
a tremendous success, and Sullivan was so bitten by the stage
bug that at the request of another manager he dashed off The
Zoo, with a librettist whose identity it would be kinder not to
reveal since he afterwards did good work under a nom-de-plume.
The Zoo achieved a few performances but was never published.

THE FIRST PERIOD

One significant feature will be referred to in Chapter VHI;
meanwhile a brief quotation will indicate the quality of words
and music.

Ex.9

I loved her fond - ly, and Her fath-er had been, a gro-cer,

But when I sought her hand He has-ti - ly ans - wered "No sir."

Not even the wand'ring minstrel could match such flights
of poesy, and Sullivan quickly decided to throw in his lot
definitely with Carte and Gilbert. It was the turning-point of
his career.

COMPARATIVE CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE
OF FIRST PERFORMANCES

Operas and Operettas by Sullivan

(complete list)

Contemporary Operas and
Operettas by other Composers

1867 Cox and Box

The Contrabandists

1871 Thespis

1875 Trial by Jury
The Zoo

1877

Sorcerer

1878 H.M.S. Pinafore

1879 The Pirates of Penzance

1881 Patience

1882 lolanthe

1884 Princess Ida

The Sorcerer (revised version)

1885 The Mikado

1887 Ruddigorc

1888 The Yeomen of the Guard

1889- "Hie Gondoliers

1891 Ivanhoe

1892 Haddon Hall

1893 Utopia limited

\ 1895 The Chieftain

Hie Grand Duke

1898 The Beauty Stone

1899 The Rose of Persia

1866 The Bartered Bride
La Vie parisienne
Mignon

1867 Don Carlos

The Grand Duchess of Gerolstein
Romeo and Juliet

1868 Die Meistersinger
La Perichole

1869 Das Rheingold

1870 Die Walkiire
1872 Aida

La Kile de Madame Angot

1874 Die Fledermaus

1875 Carmen

1876 Siegfried
Gotterdammerung

1877 Les Cloches de Corneville
Samson and Delilah

j 1878 The Peasant a Rogue
1879 Eugen Onegin

1881 The Tales of Hoffmann

1882 The Snow Maiden
Parsifal

1883 Lakme

1884 Manon

1885 The Gipsy Baron

1886 Dorothy

1887 Otdlo

1890 Cavalleria rusticana
La Basoche
Prince Igor
The Queen of Spades

1892 Pagliacci

The Mountebanks

1893 Falstaff
Manon Lescaut
Hansel und Gretel

1894 Thais

1896 Shamus O'Brien

The Geisha

La Boheme
1898 V&onique

CHAPTER III

SULLIVAN AND GILBERT

THE partnership flourished from 1877 until 1890. Almost
annually London was treated to another 'Gilbert-and-Sullivan*
under Carte's management The Sorcerer, H.M.5. Pinafore,
The Pirates ofPenzance and Patience at the old Opera Comique ;
then lolanthe, Princess Ida, The Mikado, Ruddigore, The Yeomen
of the Guard and The Gondoliers at the Savoy. The least success-
ful ran for 247 performances l and two knocked on 700, a very-
rare achievement in the eighteen-eighties. Many of Sullivan's
serious-minded contemporaries looked askance at such meretri-
cious triumphs ; they reserved their applause for two cantatas
written at the request of the Leeds Festival Committee The
Martyr ofAntioch (1880) and The Golden Legend (1886) which,
apart from the Macbeth music (1888), were virtually his only
other compositions during these thirteen years. 2

It was a busy time for Sullivan. He had to fulfil conducting
engagements all over Great Britain, and paid two extended
visits to the United States. For several years, too, he was
Director of the newly founded National Training School for
Music in South Kensington (later the Royal College of Music)
and President of the Birmingham and Midland Institute ; the
duties may not have been onerous, but he seems to have carried

1 The Sorcerer was played only 175 times at the Opera Comique, but it was
given again at the Savoy ' with alterations and additions ' to fill the gap between
Princess Ida and The Mikado and thereby reached the 300 mark.

2 Sullivan described The Martyr of Antwch as a * Sacred Music Drama ' and
kter adapted it for a stage production by the Carl Rosa Opera Company, but it
cannot properly be regarded as belonging to any but the c cantata ' category.

20 THE MUSIC OF ARTHUR SULLIVAN

them out conscientiously. Between-whiles he indulged his
favourite hobbies horse-racing, roulette and the cultivation
of royalty (he was knighted in 1883). It is astonishing that his
constitution stood the strain. Never strong physically, from
about 1873 onwards he had been increasingly troubled with
stone in the kidney ; twice at least he nearly died of this painful
disease.

Hie music of Sullivan's maturity will be folly discussed in
later chapters, but one point of over-riding significance must
be stressed here and now. The best of his early works had
owed their good qualities to his familiarity with the eighteenth-
century classics and his sincere admiration for Schubert,
Mendelssohn and other illustrious composers of the early
nineteenth, yet his subsequent development was even more
profoundly influenced by a man whose only claim to be a
musician was that he recognised God Save the Queen when he
heard it Hitherto much of Sullivan's output especially the
vocal and concerted pieces had been marred by too easy an
acceptance of current convention, and it was the originality,
wit and, above all, metrical ingenuity of Gilbert's verses that
gave him the driving-power that he so badly needed. Cox and
Box had been an innocent mid-Victorian frolic to which he had
contributed his modest share of homely fun; the brilliant
libretto of Trial by Jury inspired him to play his full part in the
creation of a comic masterpiece which, for all its imperfections,
remains unsurpassed as a curtain-raiser to this day. Here author
and composer played generously into each other's hands and
between them they won nearly all the tricks.

It was indeed a fertile liaison, for if Gilbert planted the
seed from which many of the best melodies sprang, Sullivan
breathed life into doggerel rhymes that would have stood no
chance of independent survival. And how often they hit on
die unforgettable phrase in which words and music are for ever

SULLIVAN AND GILBERT

inseparable ! Though both were addicted to sentimentality,
in their combined work the lapses were comparatively few
and did not always coincide. Sullivan let Gilbert down rather
badly in one or two of the tenor songs, but elsewhere he more
than restored the balance by fitting exquisite music to some
very second-rate lyrics.

More often than not, however, their humour and sentiment
marched together, and they were absolutely at one in their
sympathetic portrayal of that innocent gaiety which we are
asked to believe was such a pleasing characteristic of Victorian
maidens. Hence the consistently high standard of words and
music in the ensembles where pretty girls play a leading part ;
none are mawkish, nearly all are charming, and a few deserve
even higher commendation. In 'Comes a train of little ladies'
(The Mikado] both men excelled themselves. It is a supreme
example of their happy collaboration in capturing an atmosphere
of youthful femininity trembling deliriously on the threshold
of womanhood. The full beauty of this lovely chorus can
only be appreciated in an actual performance, but I cannot
forbear to quote the last few bars.

Chorus of Girls

T r

And we won - der- how we won - der,

We won - der- how we

won - der!- "What on earth the world can be!

22 THE MUSIC OF ARTHUR SULLIVAN

Perfection was not attained without much heart-searching.
Sullivan, for instance, by no means shared Gilbert's fondness
for poking fun at the fading charms of middle-aged spinsters,
and sometimes turned the tables neatly by setting satirical words
with apparent sincerity as in Lady Jane's song from Patience.
Although some critics, notably Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, have
lost their sense of proportion in condemning such characterisa-
tions as * sadistic *, this sort of thing weighed heavily on Sullivan,
which was one reason (there were others) why in 1884 he
rejected the draft libretto of The Mountebanks (later most
admirably put to music by Alfred Cellier) where certainly
Gilbert more than once overstepped the bounds of good taste.

This decision irritated Gilbert and worried Carte, for it was
symptomatic of Sullivan's growing discontent. He was tired
of setting jingles and hankered to re-establish himself as a
serious composer by writing a grand opera ; this time it was
Gilbert who refused to take part it would only emphasise
his subordinate position as a mere hack which, as an established
pkywright, he was already finding intolerable. He himself
thought a lot of his own plays and resented it when others did
not share that opinion; in truth they were mostly fustian,
bong often written in the blankest of blank verse, and it was
only after joining forces with Sullivan that he brought to the
stage his talent for clever rhyming, pointed wit and occasion-
allytender charm. Thus neither Gilbert nor Sullivan
escaped the pangs of jealousy, for the subconscious realisation
of their interdependence caused each to grudge the other his
share in their joint success. There were continual arguments
not all good-tempered but for many years Carte managed
to keep his restless team in harness. When each opera in turn
proved itself a money-spinner they were certainly fulsome
in their mutual congratulations; bard words were forgiven
and differences forgotten until the next production was due.

SULLIVAN AND GILBERT 23

Partly it was a clash of personalities. Gilbert's caustic jibes
and studied rudeness were a facade ; in spite of a predilection
for Rabelaisian humour in the smoking-room and innocent
flirtation in the salon, he adhered to a rigid, almost puritanical
pattern of life and devoted himself to his work with a steadiness
of artistic purpose which was never one of Sullivan's attributes.
He respected and indeed admired his colleague for his achieve-
ments in the world of music, but he had little sympathy with
the bohemian bon viveur who composed his operas in feverish
spasms, sometimes finishing them on the morning of the first
performance. As time went on the edifice Carte had so pains-
takingly built up showed further signs of strain ; disagreements
became more frequent and recriminations more violent a
break sooner or later seemed inevitable. When it came, how-
ever, it was a matter of business, not incompatibility, that was
the immediate cause. Returning from a holiday abroad early
in 1890, Gilbert found that in the expense account for The
Gondoliers Carte had debited Sullivan and himself with the
cost (^500) of new carpets for the foyer of the Savoy Theatre.
This spark set his fiery temper ablaze ; although the heat was
turned primarily on Carte, Sullivan's attempts at mediation
merely served to fan a flame that soon scorched them both.

We are concerned here not with the rights and wrongs of
this famous quarrel (eventually fought out in the law courts)
but with its effect on the relationship of the three participants.
The first casualties were Gilbert's manners, Sullivan's health,
and Carte's judgment. * I'll beat you both yet, you scoundrels ! '
roared the blustering author; 'I am mentally and physically
ill over this wretched business,' complained the sensitive com-
poser ; estranged from Gilbert, the sanguine impresario placed
too much reliance on Sullivan's initiative. Carte's logic was
sound as far as it went : in spite of the rising tension Sullivan
had not only retained his flair for setting light verses but had

34 THE MUSIC OF ARTHUR SULLIVAN

gradually brought to this type of work a widened outlook and
improved technique so that almost every opera from Pinafore
onwards had been musically superior to its predecessor ; even
if new librettists had to be found they could hardly fail to be
more congenial than Gilbert ; why should not the glass con-
tinue to rise ? But alas, Gilbert's understudies proved broken
reeds, and the steady mercurial ascent to the pinnacle of The
Gondoliers was followed by a sudden deep depression; the
stimulus Sullivan needed had been withdrawn.

His long-awaited grand opera aroused great hopes. In
the event it had been written by Julian Sturgis and composed
during the height of the carpet controversy ; Her Majesty the
Queen had been graciously pleased to accept the dedication.
But Ivanhoe (1891) came up to nobody's expectations ; Sullivan
himself was disillusioned * grand opera is the greatest gamble
in the world, and a cobbler should stick to his last* he confided
to Reginald de Koven, who accompanied him to one of the
performances. He struggled hard with some music for The
Foresters* but Tennyson's uncompromising attitude irked him.
So, not surprisingly, did the literary style.

There is no land like England

Where'er the light of day be ;
There are no wives like English wives,

So fair and chaste as they be.

How did the author of The Idylls of the King corne to put his
name to such puerile rubbish ? This regrettable affair aroused
small enthusiasm in New York and it was never played in
London at all. Sullivan had had a lesson and he insisted that
his next librettist (Sydney Grundy) should proffer two alterna-
tive lyrics for every song in Haddon Hall (Gilbert had always
been ready to do so on request). Even so the music came
slowly during a period of great suffering when, for the third

SULLIVAN AND GILBERT 25

time, he nearly succumbed to his old complaint. Billed as an
'English Light Opera' Haddon Hall enjoyed a mild succes
d'estime, but when the public stayed away Carte saw the red
light. He held out a tentative olive-branch to Gilbert, who
consented to bury the hatchet on certain conditions; with
Sullivan now only too ready to agree, a rather grudging recon-
ciliation was effected and after an interval of four years the
curtain went up on a new 'GHbert-and-Sullivan'.

No expense had been spared to make Utopia Limited (1893)
a success, and at first it was well received. But the old magic
was gone, the nightly takings soon dropped, and by Savoy
standards it could only be accounted a failure. Both author
and composer accepted the fact, and they turned aside again
Gilbert to an independent theatrical venture and Sullivan to a
whirl of social activity. During the next two years music was
neglected; for the time being his horses Cranmer and Blue
Mark held first place in his affections, though they rarely did
so in the races for which they were entered. Only on a long
visit to Monte Carlo did he start intermittent work ; there he
occasionally tore himself away from the casino and bit by bit
completed a revised version of his youthful jeu d 'esprit, The
Contrabandista. Re-christened The Chieftain it achieved a Savoy
production, but (like Cranmer and Blue Mark) it had no
staying power.

In 1896 Carte brought Gilbert and Sullivan together once
again, but The Grand Duke was an almighty flop ; each blamed
the other and the rift between them was now complete.
Gilbert retired to his country house at Harrow Weald to nurse
his resentment and his gout ; Sullivan went for a long holiday
to St, Moritz where he enjoyed the company of the Duke and
Duchess of Teck, one of whose daughters later to be Queen
of England gave him *a beautiful photograph of herself*.
His health was now seriously deteriorating, but in return for
c

26 THE MUSIC OF ARTHUR SULLIVAN

royal favours he provided some ballet-music for Queen
Victoria's Diamond Jubilee (see pages 74, 83) and in 1898
devoted a lot of time to The Beauty Stone. Although some of
the lyrics had a poetic quality that appealed to him and were
certainly better than those of The Foresters, Sullivan found the
joint authors, Comyns Carr and Arthur Pinero, as unco-
operative as Tennyson had been* (A few years previously he
had written some very dull music for Comyns Carr's play
King Arthur.) The Beauty Stone was an ineffective piece
which survived less than two months and left Sullivan utterly
dispirited. During eight years he had tried six new librettists
without finding inspiration; 'there is no Sullivan without a
Gilbert' was his own comment

However, his next collaborator, Basil Hood, strove hard to
fill the vacancy by cleverly imitative methods, and in The Rose
of Persia managed to conjure a few sparks of vitality from the
flagging composer. This was Carte's most successful new
enterprise (financially at any rate) since The Gondoliers, and
Hood promptly produced another libretto (The Emerald Isle)
on which Sullivan worked spasmodically (the music was later
completed by Edward German). But his physical condition
grew gradually worse ; another attack of his chronic kidney
trouble coincided with a severe throat infection and at times
he was in almost unbearable pain. He died on 22nd November
1900.

The news was kept from Carte, who was Lirnself danger-
ously ill, but a sixth sense must have told him what had
happened. A few days after Sullivan's death he was found lying
exhausted on the floor of his Savoy Hotel bedroom, having
apparently dragged himself to the window. 'I have seen the
last of my old friend Sullivan', he whispered; the funeral
procession had indeed just passed along the Embankment
on its way to St. Paul's Cathedral.

SULLIVAN AND GILBERT 27

Although Gilbert never spoke to Sullivan after the fiasco of
The Grand Duke, he wrote a very cordial letter during the
composer's last illness, and had he not been in Egypt recuperat-
ing from rheumatic fever there would almost certainly have
been a deathbed reunion which in the popular imagination
at least would have set an appropriate seal on their long,
prolific and sometimes turbulent association. Sullivan died
too soon to realise that his melodies had conferred immortality
on his partner's verses, but as time rolled on and the plays by
which he set such store lay neglected and forgotten while the
operas continued to flourish, Gilbert began to have an inkling
of the truth. In 1903 he wrote to a friend : *a Gilbert is no
use without a Sullivan, and I can't find one* a pathetic echo
of Sullivan's cry five years earlier and towards the end of
his life (he died in 1911) the dictatorial, quick-tempered, warm-
hearted old man paid a generous public tribute to his former
colleague. *I am not at my merriest when I remember all that
he has done for me in allowing his genius to shed some of its
lustre on my humble name.' In return he should be given
credit for having rescued Sullivan from a limbo of mediocrity
and for stimulating him to put forth music that has brought
happiness to countless thousands.

CHAPTER IV

RHYTHM AND WORD-SETTING

WHEN fitting music to words Sullivan usually looked first for
any features of rhythmic interest that might be lurking behind
the metrical fa$ade, and Gilbert's verses, which often combined
a formal balance with strophic irregularity, were a challenge to
his ingenuity.

Let us examine his approach to a typical case Captain
Corcoran's song from Act II of H.M.S. Pinafore. (One notices
at once that the lines have iambic accents 3-3-3-4 in the first
two stanzas, 4-4-4-3 in the third, and 3-3-3-4 in the fourth
which is a verbal repetition of the first.)

Fair moon, to thee I sing !

Bright regent of the heavens,
Say, why 7 is everything

Either at sixes or at sevens?

I have lived hitherto

Free from the breath of sHnder,

Belov'd by all my crew,

A really popular commander.

But now my kindly crew rebel,
My daughter t6 a tar is partial,

Sir Joseph storms, and, sad to tell,
He threatens a court-martial.

Fair moon, to thee I sing, etc.

When reading this through, Sullivan would disregard the

metre and follow the natural syllabic accentuation (e.g. * Either

RHYTHM AND WORD-SETTING 29

at sixes or at sevens '). Then he would jot down half a dozen
or so alternative rhythmic outlines, using perhaps three different
time-signatures, eventually select one as being the most suitable,
and allow it to settle in his subconscious mind while he went
off to a race-meeting or a poker-party. Next day, or perhaps a
week later, the melodic outline would take shape in his conscious
mind. (As he sometimes had inspirations at socially incon-
venient moments, he always carried a small pad of music paper
in his pocket, and was even known to interrupt a tete-a-tete
in order to jot down an idea that had suddenly come to him.)
When he next settled to work, he would give the tune a final
polish and make a prehminary sketch of the harmony and the
instrumental figuration.

This method of composition might not suit everyone but
it worked splendidly with Sullivan; to appreciate this, one
need only read the lyric once more as objectively as possible
and compare it line by line with the finished article.

Ex.11 Fair moon, to thee I. sing! Bright re-gent of the hea-vens, Say, why ia ev-*ry-thing Ei-therat afcc-es or at

j J.

f if

. .

it r ' * i

se - Tens? Say, why is ev-'ry- thing- Ei-ther at fiix-es or at se-yens. I have lived hitter-to

Free from the breath o_ slan-der. Be - lovd

JKJ JJrui* i Jj.i

" ^tf -P*JL L I i! 9 I r _ A, 111 " ^^

i M 'r t r i 'f i^i'P * f*i'*r ^

real-ly pop-u- lar com-mand-er. Bat now my kind-ly crew re - bel,_ My da.ug-b.-ter to a tar is

^ J t. J I J . J, fiJ } h . fr uH * i . r h

r T > r * '

part-ial, Sir Jo - seph storms, and, sad to tell, He threat-ens a court -mart-ial. Fair moon, to thee

U . v . J. .hJ- t J. JU > J J. ..Nft ^ J t J i r fi

'L 1 !!! , P ^, P H U flt B IT1 o ' L tt L

^ *r i f * fTf i ? ^ r t M f * >

(This extract is necessarily compressed for reasons of space,
and the chords are merely intended to indicate the harmonic

3 o THE MUSIC OF ARTHUR SULLIVAN

scheme; the orchestral accompaniment is, of course, more
elaborate. That the song ends with a conventional melisma
superimposed on a hackneyed harmonic progression is here
beside the point.)

Phoebe's song 'Were I thy bride' from The Yeomen
of the Guard is sometimes cited as being a smooth metrical
metamorphosis, but in fact it is not really a happy instance.
Although the ten-bar setting of the opening is certainly appro-
priate, die melody charming, the harmonisation fluent, and the
orchestral treatment suitably delicate throughout, the retention
of an identical time-pattern for each successive stanza (there are
eight of them all told) becomes slightly monotonous. Sullivan
appEed his regular procedure most successfully to the
first stanza, but thereafter he followed (rhythmically) the line
of least resistance.

Other considerations justified a deviation from routine in
*Qh, goddess wise* (Princess Ida). Here Sullivan had for once
to concentrate on a lyric of true poetic quality, and no other
composer would have thought of maintaining a balance by
using the same melodic phrase for the final heroic couplet
as for the irregular first stanza.

(1) Cfc, godriess wise Thai lov - es^ light, En-dow with sight Their un- il- lum-in'd eyes.

{2} Let fer-ver.twerds axd fer-wotttaighisbe mine, That I may lead them to thy sa-cred shrine.

One only regrets that this led him to a false accent on the word
*to f ; apart from a conventional harmonic cliche used in the
cadence it is the only blemish (a very minor one) on a beautiful
song which does great credit to both author and composer.

Short lines such as occur in these two lyrics are very
characteristic of Gilbert's style, and Sullivan enthusiastically
explored their potentialities for rhythmic variety. If in due
course he lighted on a melody of distinction that fitted the

RHYTHM AND WORD-SETTING 31

framework he had so carefully chosen, then his music touched
the heights. That impeccable song 'The Sun whose rays*
(The Mikado) comes into this category. Here is the refrain,
which incorporates two totally different settings of a single
four-line stanza.

Andante coaiodo

I mean to rule the earth,- As he the sky- We real-ly kncwoarwjrth^.ThsmiadI!

' ' r r r r r ' '

f U I! | U' j t ' it

I mean to rule the earth, As he the sky- We

I mean to rule the earth, As he the sky- We real-ly know our 'worth the sun and I!

A passage from Act I of The Gondoliers is also worth quoting,
if only as an instance of how Sullivan occasionally allowed his
logical approach to carry him near a dangerous extreme. The
duet 'We're called gondolieri 9 is followed by two stanzas of
five short lines each in which Marco and Giuseppe get down to
business. Marco sings the first line 'And now to choose our
brides I 9 in recitative, and then we have this metrical trans-
formation, which is ingenious but hardly gives the rhymes
and metre a fair chance.

^sepae Both

all are young and fair, And am-ia-ble be-sides, We real-ly do not care A pref -renoe

.JP fl J-1 1

9 F P U t

raarco

7 E IE

f. f. f. f. a . oiuwH"

, ilr fr J J ' J 1 1 C f t T-g-|

to de - clare. A bi-as to dia- close Would be in de -li-cate- And

there-fore we pro-poae To let im - part - ial fate Se - lect for us a mate.

Such problems are handled even more skilfully (and less
drastically) in a self-contained section from the finale of the
same act. Gilbert never wrote prettier verses the first is
for the soprano, the second for the soubrette.

THE MUSIC OF ARTHUR SULLIVAN

Now, Marco dear,
My wishes hear :

While you're away.
It's understood
You will be good

And not too gay.
To ev'ry trace
Of maiden grace

You will be blind,
And will not glance
By any chance

On womankind !
If you are wise
You'll shut your eyes

Till we arrive,
And not address
A lady less

Than forty-five.
You'll please to frown
On ev'ry gown

That you may see ;
And, O rny pet,
You won't forget

You've married me !

You'll lay your head
Upon your bed

At set of sun.
You will not sing
Of anything

To anyone.
You'll sit and mope
All day, I hope,

And shed a tear
Upon the life
Your little wife

Is passing here.
And if so be
You think of me,

Please tell the moon :
I'll read it all
In rays that fall

On the lagoon :
You'll be so kind
As tell the wind

How you may be,
And send me words
By little birds

To comfort me !

And, O my darling, O my pet,
Whatever else you may forget
In yonder isle beyond the sea,
Do not forget you've married me !

Here is die first bar of the music, scored for flutes, clarinet and
pizzicato violas and basses, with the soprano singing 'Now,
Marco dear*, etc. on the top line.

Andante coa moto

RHYTHM AND WORD-SETTING 33

Except for a tiny variation at the words 'And, O my pet*, the
same rhythm persists until the refrain, which introduces a
contrasted legato phrase.

Ex.16

And, my darl - iag, my pet, What - ev - er else you may for -

ff'pr l>,f/f

C f E E ' I* 1 r C

get In yon-der Isle be-yond the sea, Do not for -get, Bo not for-get you've mar-rled me!

In the second verse, by a masterstroke, the accent at the opening
is moved by two syllables (i.e. half* beat)

Ex.17 , .

ir i,i r i iji r,r ' r

You'll lay your head U - pon your bed At set of sun.

and presently we have this fascinating evolution.

You'll sit and mope An day, I hope, And shed a tear Up-on the life Your lit- tie wife Is pass-ing- here.

By the time she reaches 'send me words By little birds' the
soubrette is a whole beat ahead of the soprano (at the corre-
sponding point of the first verse), and she starts her refrain not
only a fourth lower (i.e. in the dominant) but two beats ahead,
A passage remarkable for harmonic subtlety leads back to the
tonic, where the voices of tenor and baritone blend with the
others in a final repetition of 'O my darling, O my pet', etc.
This captivating piece shows Sullivan at his very best (Gilbert,
too),

Shifting accents also play their part in another ensemble,
more sprightly and equally charming, this time from The
Mikado ; it contains a few traps for unwary singers, however
well they may know their notes, for in the first verse both
stanzas start with this rhythm

THE MUSIC OF ARTHUR SULLIVAN
Ex.19*

Three lit - tie maids from school are we,

but in the second verse we find

7 mrr

"* 0ae lit - tie maid is a bride, Yum - yum.

and just before the first refrain there is an intriguing half-bar
overlap between voices and orchestra.

Ex.19c

V ' '

Three lit- tie maids from

school.

I J

. J

i- <

f * a

f j

f~P 1

" ->

4f*

Occasionally, of course, a simple lyric would immediately
suggest a melodic rather than a rhydimic outline, but even
then Sullivan would carefully weigh the advantages of various
alternative time-signatures and perhaps eventually place it in
3/4 (or 9/8) instead of the 2/4 (or 6/8) that could have been
expected. Many composers, if setting these words from
Ruddigore and The Yeomen of the Guard, might have written

"f r f *L/ ^ i^ T r r r TJ
t* ' v ' ^^ 'L^l u ' v 1 yes ^ Has-cu-hne in sex!

Several of the examples just cited, notably "Three little
maids from school are we', make it clear that Sullivan by no
means depended on short lines or metrical irregularity to stimu-
late his inventive power. More formal measures served the
purpose equally well, provided that he could escape from
strophic restrictions. There is nothing unusual in the metre
of 'Long years ago, fourteen maybe' (Patience], yet we notice
at once the composer's scrupulous attention to detail. The

3 6 THE MUSIC OF ARTHUR SULLIVAN

accentuation is cunningly varied during the eight bars allotted
to die first stanza ; for contrast the second which also con-
sists of four iambic tetrameters is squeezed into jive bars.
In the section beginning 'Ah, old, old tale of Cupid's touch'
the treatment is yet again different (with a novel form of
accompaniment in which bassoon and pizzicato basses figure
prominently). This is by no means an isolated instance of a
stereotyped lyric being brought to life by Sullivan's clever
variations on note-values. Look at these few bars from
lolmthe ; at first glance there is nothing very remarkable about
them, but more careful examination will reveal that placing
the word 'Tears' on the third beat of a bar instead of on
die first beat of the next bar gives it just the right emphasis,
and incidentally helps to lift the mawkish lines to somewhere
near the level of true pathos.

Ex.22

He ton! XT }B DM 6pejearaTfaiB0<^te 6Jrshd Tears- bit-ter tttt-a-vail-iii^tears-lbroneuittijne-ly dead-
It was not only in pastiche e.g. the Slow Dance from
Kefiilworth (see Ex. 2, page 10) and the minuet from The
Sorcerer (Ex. 161, page 145) that Sullivan followed the
early-eighteenth-century practice of turning two bars of 3/4
time into one bar of 3/2. It often forms the basis of those
drawn-out cadences (e.g. in 'Hearts do not break' from The
Mikado) which almost became a mannerism, and it underlies
the whole rhythmic pattern of ' Ah, leave me not to pine' from
The Pirates ofPenzance, where in consequence the vocal phrases
fall into unequal bar lengths 3-4-6-4-4.

e*io4t* pice A-loce and demo-late; Nofateseem'dfairasmine, Ko tap-pi-nesa so ^reatl

In brisker tempi, too, he sometimes used the same device,
it later became part of Tchaikovsky's stock-in-trade, but one

RHYTHM AND WORD-SETTING
should remember that Di Ballo

Ex.24a

was written long before Swan Lake.

Ex.2Ab

"LJLJt

This form of syncopation really derives from that duality of
sextuple time which was exploited by Dvorak in the scherzo
of his Symphony in D minor and later by Sibelius in the second
movement of his third, but there is nothing specifically Slavonic
or Finno-Ugric about the contrast. Sullivan took advantage
of it to impart artistic verisimilitude to gay Latin dance measures,
as in The Gondoliers, for example.

Ex.25 Allegro vivace coo molto trio

Once, in The Beauty Stone, a strand of linear counterpoint is
pulled from the rhythmic texture (see also Ex. 87, page 90)

ft 2 !.

Girls

Sway - ing- gent - ly__ to the mu - sic _ as they thread each wind

i \r . f f

And hiE was the love that found wing-si Nay

J J* f J*

J i i IF LE

al - ley Comes a troop of laugh - ing- maid - ens,

hath

it not ev - er been

so?

3$ THE MUSIC OF ARTHUR SULLIVAN

and there is an interesting but not very successful experiment
in Utopia Limited where the tune of * O make way for the Wise
Men f is first heard in a rather pompous 3/4 and is afterwards
repeated with identical note-values in a jaunty 6/8.

The flak for appropriate verbal accentuation which is such
an outstanding feature of Sullivan's best work must not blind
us to the fact that his talented craftsmanship in other depart-
ments helped to ensure his success. One of his most deservedly
popular songs * There lived a king, as I've been told' from
The Gondoliers is rhythmically unadventurous, yet although
it has a tune which the man-in-the-theatre can whistle when he
comes out into the street its formal symmetry is perfect and
every bar will stand inspection by a trained musician. Never
afraid of the obvious, he was sometimes content to set jog-trot
jingles to music that was equally jog-trot and perhaps none the
worse for that, but even where the words were of primary
importance he sometimes pointed them with a deft individual
touch. There is an early instance in The Contrabandists, (libretto
by R C. Burnand) ; unfortunately the accent on the second
beat of the bar that is so suitable for 'strut' becomes a false one
when the same notes are forced to fit the second verse.

(1) Let bi - 4a!-goe& be proud of their breed and strut in. the streets of Ma - drid.

A \iy tie* ui - vuu'gwnfe &c piuuu w wucu uiceu anu aiauv iu me aviccia u

Let se - or-as flash bril-Ii-ant eves on the bold ma-ta-dor in

^ "^ ^r -*r ]p ^,

se - tor- as flash bril-Ii- ant eyes on the bold ma-ta-dor in the ring 1 .

Once he became accustomed to Gilbert's idiosyncrasies,
Sullivan found little difficulty in ringing the changes. Essentially
there is not much metrical difference between

(1) *If you're anxious for to shine in the high aesthetic line as a
mn of culture rare* ;

(2) * When you're 1/ing awdke with a dismal headache and repose
is tabooed by anxiety* ;

(3) 'When the night wind howls in the chimney cowls and the
hat in die moonlight flies*.

RHYTHM AND WORD-SETTING 39

Certainly Gilbert had the lilt of Patience and lolanthe in his head
when writing Ruddigore, and he had a shock when he first heard

Ex.23

C'C C r c EMC r ' ' " '

When the night wind howls in the chim-ney cowls and the bat in the moon-light flies, fie.

for he 'had hoped that the scene would have been treated
more humorously ' .

Even in this superb song, however, Sullivan fell into the
old Contrabandists trap of allowing a stress that was appropriate
in the first verse to do duty again in the second (and third) ; in
such cases judicious editing is advised and, so far as I know,
not even those fanatics who regard Sullivan's every note and
phrase-mark as sacrosanct have ever complained that

Ex.29a / / L /

u : , r p if r r r frr if
Jib I El 1 T v\^\ M :

And -the mists lie low on the ' fen.

has for many years been rendered

Ex.29b / / /

r r "r

And the mists lie low on the fen.

and so appears in the latest edition of the vocal score,

On the other hand he occasionally introduced an effective
contrast when it was most welcome. In Dame Hannah's
song from Act I of Ruddigore melody and rhythm are alike
commonplace, but half-way through the third verse both are
dramatically interrupted, and the number is thereby given a
touch of much-needed distinction.

Ex.30

The pro-phe-cy came true: Each heir who held the ti-tle Had, ev-'ry day, to do Some crime o

PM i _ I.T i>_ i _ IA i - r. r. t.. r N- . itf.

im - port vi-tal; Un-til with guilt o'er- plied '*ril flin no morel" he

y r I 7 t^

cried, And 01

i the day he said that si

iy, In a - go-ny he died!

40 THE MUSIC OF ARTHUR SULLIVAN

Sullivan's versatility was amazing; he would turn from
doggerel one minute to blank verse the next. In Kenilworth,
at die age of twenty-two, he had been faced with

Look, how the floor of heaven
Is thick inlaid with patin.es of bright gold ;
There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins ;
Such harmony is in immortal souls.

Whether or not his tune had caught the spirit of Shakespeare's
lines is for the moment neither here nor there ; at least he had
shown proper appreciation of their underlying rhythm and the
experience served him well, for Gilbert wrote many passages
in blank verse (or something like it). They were intended for
recitative, but Sullivan sometimes had other ideas. Look at
tie short number 'Now for the pirates' lair !' from Act II of
The Pirates ; every sentence, nay every word, is treated on its
merits, and it would be hard to construct a vocal line better
fitted to the natural rise and fall of the verbal phrases.

Ex.31

Frtderic Ruth

iNn rV.

Who calls? And

r > . : j n 1 1 i - =1

Youag- Fred-lid Your late com-mand-erl

\ *^j J 1^^^ ttf ' =

iM J t T?^

Ruth! Ohmad in - tm-ders, Hew dare you face me?

S r 3 , J <^ 4

p~! i C f ? >l

IF * * r IF " I j

RHYTHM AND WORD-SETTING 41

Elsewhere, too, Sullivan showed the same skill in this type
of transformation. One should study the long passage marked
allegro doppio movimento in the first-act finale of The Yeomen,
and notice the orchestra's part in the conversation.

Ex.32a

Fairfax

E IT r

Is this Phoe-be?

What,

lit-tlc Pho-be?

Who the deuce may she be?

it firt

E '* i *

Phoebe

['* I'*

Fairfax

"Why, how yoifve grown! I did not re-cog-nise you! So ma - ny years!

Ok, my broth-erf

In Ivanhoe, however, blank verse got Sullivan down.
Although a layman might feel that Julian Sturgis' libretto, qua
libretto, received unduly harsh treatment from professional
literary critics (Bernard Shaw, for instance, in his dual capacity,
overpraised the music but inevitably lampooned the words),
there was admittedly an undue proportion of stilted iambic
pentameters.

And them shalt share my glory and my pride ;
For I will make thee Empress of the East,
Carve thee a throne more fair than Solyman's
And thou and I, fearing nor man nor God,
Shall sit on high, the crowned monarchs of the world.

This sort of thing, even if it ended with a needless alexandrine,
could not be expected to give a composer much encouragement.

42 THE MUSIC OF ARTHUR SULLIVAN

Sullivan did his best to provide an effective climax by extending
the last line into a rhapsodical outburst, but he slipped up
(unnecessarily) when he stressed the word *of ' in the cadence.
He was more successful in the final stanza of 'Woo thou thy
snowfkke*, quoted in Ex. 33 below ; it is melodically satisfying,
and although the rhythmic treatment is not particularly original
it is at all times quite appropriate. The whole of this song,
moreover, has a passionate intensity that is unusual for Sullivan.

Ex.33
f fol

Ap-

f r 1

Maid of Ju-dah t trenrfliDg'in- my arms, Proud is thy fate to own my con-quring 1

* r f \\ v 'i ^ i * K ' ' ' i TI ' IT r

sword! Though Hell oppose with all its dire a - larms, This hour is mine,

* "TUB^^T \V\

Tils hour is mine, and I, and I thy lord, thy ruth - less lord.

If a lyric did not immediately suggest a satisfactory melodic
phrase to his mind, nor on closer investigation stimulate his
rhythmic imagination, Sullivan lost interest, and in setting it
to music followed the line of least resistance ; hence the tedium
of his early oratorios. When he lapsed into rigidity or in-
apposite accentuation in the operas it may sometimes have
been because Gilbert's words failed to inspire him (and indeed
they could be extremely trivial), but we must also remember
that when pressed for time as he often was he tended to
dash down the first thing that came into his head. Sometimes
he even used ready-made tunes without any regard for either
metre or sense, which may account for the astonishing inepti-
tude of * Oh I happy the lily' (Ruddigore} and 'Oh, sweet
surprise oh, dear delight* (Utopia Limited}. The same
excuse will hardly explain away this passage from The Golden
Legend, where perhaps he was merely being perverse.

RHYTHM AND WORD-SETTING 43

x.34,,, L v

(Chorus) /

Ov-erfield,andfarm, and for-est, L one-some home-ateaii, dark-some tarn-let,

-* . 7

.|J~TJ' J J J jaU^.* _TJJ^..J 3fcJJ=
Ov-er f ield^andfaraifftDd for-esfc

In spite of such occasional lapses, Sullivan's reputation de-
servedly owes much to his extraordinary gift for word-setting.
In this chapter -we have briefly reviewed his methods of ap-
proach ; it has not been possible to cite more than a few instances
of his almost uncanny skill in making the unexpected accent
sound natural and indeed inevitable. This characteristic facility
(together with greater resource in modulation) raises his best
light music well above the level of Messager's for instance,
which in other respects merits comparison. As for his avowed
imitators in this country Lionel Monckton, Edward Ger-
man, Sidney Jones and so on they rarely even attempted to
follow his lead towards rhythmic variety. Among popular
contemporary composers in the same genre only Vivian Ellis
has occasionally taken a tentative step in the right direction. If
any Sullivan-worshippers think it blasphemy that the name of
their idol should be mentioned in the same breath as that of
a composer of successful musical comedies, they may care to
reflect on the significance of the fact that Ellis has long enjoyed
the advantage of collaborating with Sir Alan Herbert, many of
whose lyrics are as original, as distinguished and as metrically
irregular as those of Gilbert himself

CHAPTER V

HARMONY A FEW SIGNPOSTS

SULLIVAN'S harmonic resource does not match his rhythmic
ingenuity; it often waits on melodic inspiration and rarely
shows much initiative, though now and again it lends a helping
hand in a tight corner or with a subtle touch points the way
round an arid patch of triviality or a slushy puddle of cheap
sentiment.

Brought up in the classical tradition, he was soon using the
conventional formulae of Auber, Donizetti and Balfe with
professional competence and occasionally brought off an un-
expected modulation with a panache worthy of Schubert (for
an early instance see Ex. 6, page 14). He learnt a few more
tricks from Mendelssohn and Schumann, but as time went on
became increasingly indebted to Gounod and Bizet. In swift
transitions from key to key he sometimes managed to combine
the former's smooth technique with a refinement more char-
acteristic of the latter, but in the long run the savoir-faire of
the two Frenchmen eluded him. He absorbed all that he heard
or read, and although contemporary music did not much
attract him he was not above taking a few hints from Wagner
and Parry when it suited his purpose. At one time it seemed
just possible that these diverse elements might be fused into
a unity* but the signs were few and soon became far-between ;
in retrospect they are seen as pan-flashes. In the harmonic
field he remained to the end an eclectic ; he had easily recognis-
able habits but his style never achieved individuality or even
homogeneity.

HARMONY A FEW SIGNPOSTS 45

When he first started writing operas Sullivan nearly suc-
cumbed to that tonic/dominant tyranny under which Benedict,
W. V. Wallace and young Verdi had laboured. When we
remember, however, that on some of their less distinguished
pages Bellini, Weber, Mozart and even let's face it
Beethoven had been under similar restraint, we should be
ready to overlook those few choruses from The Sorcerer and
The Pirates ofPenzance that tend to recall the worst features of
The Lily of Killarney and Maritana. Rather let us note how
soon there were signs that Sullivan was freeing himself from
these grim fetters. At the climax of their welcome to Sir
Joseph Porter and his retinue, the true-blue sailors of H.M.S,
Pinafore indulge in chromatics as adventurous as any that lend
interest to the second-act finale of Fra Diavolo, and while an
abrupt modulation from E flat major to G flat major just saves
the Austrian March in The Bohemian Girl from lapsing into
grey monotony, in Patience the Soldiers of Our Queen add to
their extravert chorus a splash of harmonic colour that is as
brilliant as the scarlet of their uniforms.

Even in the frankly comic songs, where the importance of
throwing the words into effective relief is almost all that matters,
Sullivan rarely follows the path of least resistance. The penulti-
mate line in each verse of the Judge's song from Trial by Jury,
for instance, is quite deftly harmonised, and 'My name is John
Wellington Wells' (The Sorcerer) has some realistic touches,
especially in the passage beginning "He can raise you hosts Of
ghosts'. The same eerie atmosphere is even more successfully
caught in 'When you're lying awake' (lolanthe), though here
it is the descriptive orchestration that really arrests our attention.

The two last-named songs, admirable as they both are in
their way, also serve to draw notice to one of Sullivan's
harmonic weaknesses his reliance on tonic pedal point. One
can tolerate the device in a patter song, and appreciate its

46 THE MUSIC OF ARTHUR SULLIVAN

legitimate employment as a drone bass (e.g. in *I have a song
to sing, O I 9 from The Yeomen of the Guard) or to emphasise
the home tonic at the end of a work like the Di Balk overture.
But it became such a habit with Sullivan that an objective
observer might well adduce lack of enterprise or even down-
right laziness. Such a charge is difficult to refute if one refers
to only two examples out of many : the opening chorus of
Act H, The Gondoliers, and the song * Bold-faced ranger' from
Utopia Limited. Of course Sullivan was only following the
lead of Donizetti (cf. the chorus 'Che scena ! che imbroglio !'
from The Daughter of the Regiment) and Gounod (the duet
*Nuit d'hymene' from Romeo and Juliet). Indeed he could
cite higher authority, for the last movement of Mendelssohn's
fourth symphony maintains a tonic bass for its first nineteen
bars, but such a brilliant pastiche could be a dangerous precedent
for a less resourceful composer. It must be added that Sullivan,
when he wanted to, could write a tonic pedal in an inner part
as well as anyone, witness this passage from The Mikado. 1

EX. as

tei

iwr i

1 T

nf r

i r

Although Sullivan grew up during the heyday of Mendels-
sohn-worship in this country and emulated him in many ways
(especially delicacy of orchestration), in the first few operas he

1 The Neapolitan sixth would be more effective had the same chord not been
used just previously and more appropriately in setting the words * A dreadful

fate YoiiH suffer all the same '

HARMONY A FEW SIGNPOSTS

rarely lapsed into those harmonic cliches which mar some of
Mendelssohn's more sentimental effusions. But the duet 'Long
years ago, fourteen maybe' (Patience), though it has some
admirable features which have been discussed in Chapter IV,
marks the top of a slippery slope down which Sullivan con-
tinued to slither without ever recovering his balance.

Ex.38

T r
J

r
j-

This interlude sounds very pretty on the orchestra but the
derivation is all too clear, the danger sign is there, and it is no
surprise when we reach the vocal cadence.

Ex.37

iF=

j r,. , ,y i

Ml,

He
=}=

u k ti u r L

was a lit - tie
p ^ /t\

J ,

' j J '*

^(In some of the D'Oyly Carte performances between the wars,
the pizzicato B's in the bass were the sole accompaniment
for the word *lit-tle', and the band-parts were altered accord-
ingly. This was a happy inspiration, for when the right-hand
piano chords are omitted the passage certainly sounds less
hackneyed. But Sullivan is sacred and the original version
has now been restored.)

Hitherto this progression had only occasionally reared its
head in an opera although it did so rather flagrantly at the
end of 'Fair moon, to thee I sing' (Pinafore) but thereafter
Sullivan worked it to death ; that wretched augmented fourth
introduced an unwelcome touch of cheap pretension or false

48 THE MUSIC OF ARTHUR SULLIVAN

pathos into far too many cadences. His addiction to this facile
trick has been a boon to his detractors and a source of embarrass-
ment to his defenders. Nearly every composer has his Achilles
heel ; Sullivan, having recovered from some of the growing
pains of his adolescence, developed this new weakness just as
he was approaching his prime.

Like many of his contemporaries he often used that notori-
ous chord, the diminished seventh, as an elementary approach
to die dominant seventh. In its simplest form this is a mere
convention (see the last two chords of Ex. 171 on page 149),
but Ernest Newman in his Opera Nights quoted two bars from
Les Troy ens 'to illustrate the immense psychological difference
between a Berlioz phrase in the colour-medium in which it
was conceived and the same phrase in the black-and-white of
the piano*.

Ex.38

fii

^fr'ip =j

J J u ,
-LL^-LL. ; ...

The effect also varies greatly according to the context and
can hardly be gauged without reference to the character of
the music. There are two bars in the finale of Trial by Jury
which must surely sound blatant to any but the most un-
sophisticated ear, but one would be squeamish indeed if one's
gorge were to rise at the pizzicato accompaniment to the chorus
of *In vain to us you plead* (lolanthe) where the actual notes
are almost identical. In the hands of a master the formula can
become an instrument of deep poetic expression

Ex.39

HARMONY A FEW SIGNPOSTS

yet when Sullivan follows Wagner's lead very closely in
The Golden Legend (Scene 2, at the words 'For at Salerno, far
away*) we are unaware of any emotional impact whatever.
In Ruddigore, on the other hand, the same musical idea is very
charmingly developed, this time in a mood half humorous,
half tender.

x.40

rfr

, K0 ? e ^ , Robin Rose ^ . Robin

ajg

Poor lit-tle man!

Poor lit-tle maid!

Poor lit-tle man!

Poor lit-tle maidl

UyJ J C-^^H

I ^ j j ^.Uj

1 E ^ J

The standard progression is intriguingly varied in the lead-in
to the first chorus entry at the beginning of Act II, The Mikado ;
here the diminished seventh chord drops to the dominant
seventh instead of rising to it.

Ex.41

Soon after audiences were first startled by the cry of
'Barrabam* in the Matthew Passion, lesser composers than Bach
(and some nearly as great) dropped into the easy habit of using
the diminished seventh as a sort of elementary shock-treatment
in moments of tension. Sullivan fell heavily, but as this is
really a question of dramatic style rather than of harmonic
technique it will be discussed in a later chapter.

During Sullivan's lifetime a somewhat uncritical admirer
(Charles Willeby) wrote : 'It is frequently under the spell of
another that he is most himself. For whoever that other may
be be he Schubert or Mendelssohn, Gounod or Bizet it

50 THE MUSIC OF ARTHUR SULLIVAN

is only in the light of Sullivan that he is visible. And thereby
the ktter's own individuality is the more prominently thrown
up.' This seems a Me obscure, but if the writer means what
I think he does there is a grain of truth hidden in the verbiage.
Below are four passages, all from Act II of The Pirates of
Penzance. If one were to hear them for the first time out of
context and were asked to name the composers, one might
quite possibly attribute them to Schubert, Mendelssohn,
Gounod, Bizet, in that order. Yet on learning the truth one
would kick oneself for not having recognised Sullivan's touch
in all four.

Ex.42a

Ex.ttb

(Bt sustained in bass)

His harmonic vagaries are not always so elusive. Perhaps
he is at his best when he eschews all foreign influence and

HARMONY A FEW SIGNPOSTS 51

achieves charming effects by the simplest diatonic means. Here
is another phrase, a very familiar one, from the same act of the
same opera*

Ex.43

There could never be any doubt as to who wrote that, and it is
as English as our wonderful police themselves.

CHAPTER VI

HARMONY TONALITY AND
MODULATION

FOR some reason Sullivan rarely seems altogether at home in
the minor. More often than not a piece that starts there will
slip into the tonic major (occasionally the relative major) for
the last verse or the refrain. This minor/major contrast adds
a welcome touch of individuality to some of his early pot-
boiling ballads like County Gwy, but we grow rather weary of
it when it is used so regularly in the operas, including even
Ivanhoe; in 'Lord of our chosen race* each verse is in A flat
minor although the key-signature throughout is A flat major.
(The glorious D major dawn that ends the Lord Chancellor^
D minor nightmare in lolanthe comes into a totally different
category ; this is no mere formality it is a stroke of genius.)
In the thirteen *Gilbert-and-Sullivans* (leaving Thespis out
of account) there are only eighteen numbers including three
more or less self-contained excerpts from first-act finales
that end in a minor key, and seven of these are very short pieces
of little musical importance. The same tendency is noticeable
in his serious works The Golden Legend has only three minor
sections (one recurs several times). The long E minor melody
from the symphony quoted in Ex. 4. (page n) strives to
establish the romantic mood of the first movement of Mendels-
sohn's violin concerto, but in this mode Sullivan practically
never conjures up the vivacity of such things as the Rondo
capriccioso* One possible exception is a number from the
forgotten ballet Ulle enchantee (it was afterwards transferred
to The Merry Wives of Windsor).

Ex.44

TONALITY

Allegro non troppo e scherzando

Nor does he often use the minor in the forthright manner of
Verdi ; he nearly always associates it with anxiety, mystery or
gloom, and it is significant that in the uninterrupted sunshine
of The Gondoliers there is only one passage, twenty-two bars
long, with a minor key-signature.

Once or twice in the early operas Sullivan exploited the
resources of the minor with purely comic intent The duet
'Oh, agony, rage, despair' from The Sorcerer is quite a little
tour de force, and 'Kind Captain, I've important information'
from Pinafore is almost as good. But perhaps this came to
sound dangerously like self-parody, and the composer felt he
had pricked his own skin in a tender spot. In later works the
comedians sometimes patter away in the minor, but there is
rarely any attempt to realise its potentialities for humorous
expression.

A few cases can be cited, however, where the minor is
used on its own merits. There is nothing either sinister or
sorrowful about the very first number in Sullivan's first com-
pleted opera, Cox and Box, which is a jolly if rather crude
Handelian parody. The duet 'Stay, Frederic, stay' from The
Pirates ofPenzance and the trio * Of all the young ladies I know*
from lolanthe show more originality with a curious insistence
on the sharpened sixth. 'If somebody there chanced to be'
(Ruddigore) is entirely light-hearted and very prettily exploits
the characteristics of the minor to mirror the rather conscious
ardessness of the words. But it will be noticed that all the
items just mentioned end with a refrain in the tonic major
except 'Stay, Frederic, stay* which is a mere fragment in a

54 THE MUSIC OF ARTHUR SULLIVAN

durchkomponierte section and closes, if anywhere, on the flat
leading-note major.

Indeed, Sullivan wrote only five really satisfying pieces of
music wholly in the minor three of them occur during the
course of first-act finales. The impassioned contralto solo c Oh
fool, that fleest My hallow'd joys' (The Mikado) and the force-
fill ensemble *Go away, madam' (lolanthe) are rare instances of
Verdf s influence. In the former the harmonic interest is
splendidly maintained, and this scene would not be out of
place in Aida. The latter is a free variation on a theme that
recurs constantly throughout La forza del destine and in turn
surely derives from the Egmortt overture. To facilitate com-
parison with 'Go away, madam', both are here transposed to
G minor. (It may be added that Sullivan's subsequent treat-
ment of die phrase is more reminiscent of Beethoven than of
Verdi.)

Ex.45*

Beetfesm

Ex. 451

Verdi

Ex. 45:

Sullivan

. vur , i i ,T r 1 S-T.S .-.._ " "

f F F r

The impressive funeral march from The Yeomen of the
Guard is even more noteworthy ; there is an unexpected modu-
lation to the flat supertonic major and the cadence is particu-
larly original, for a tierce de Picardie is used in the | that
precedes the full close but not in the final chord itself. (By a
strange chance the crucial bar does not figure in the autograph
score except in a different hand-writing on a narrow slip that
still adheres to the original thanks to a small piece of stamp-
paper. But the apparent omission of one bar at the end of a

MODULATION 55

page was an obvious oversight, and there is no reason to
suppose that Sullivan did. not write the whole passage himself.)

The trio *We are warriors three' (Princess Ida) is in quite a
different style ; the staccato octaves on the strings, which sug-
gest a basso ostinato without actually forming one, find effective
contrast in the colourful bursts of interruption from brass and
wood-wind, and the rousing chorus really stirs the blood.

Lastly, there is Sir Rodericks song 'When the night wind
howls' from Ruddigore, unquestionably the finest piece of
descriptive music that Sullivan ever wrote, worthy of a place
beside Schubert's Erlkonig, Wagner's overture to The Flying
Dutchman, and well above Saint-Saens' Danse macabre, all
of which are tone-paintings in a similar colour. Although the
vocal score gives not a hint of the uncanny brilliance of the
orchestration, it demonstrates the sure footholds by which
the music in a round dozen bars finds its way from D minor
to A flat major and back and the shattering impact of the^/or-
tissimo chorus entry at an interrupted cadence on the chord of
B flat major. The progressions that follow look to be unusual,
but if we study them carefully we realise that here Sullivan is
not feeling his way in unfamiliar territory. Rather we may find
in these few bars an apotheosis of his matured harmonic re^
source, just as in a few bars at the climax of Falstaff (Act II,
figure 66) we find an apotheosis of Verdi's.

Apart from such exceptional cases, when Sullivan writes
in the minor his modulations tend to follow well-worn tracks
to the mediant (the relative major) and the inevitable dominant
when he turns aside to the subdominant minor in * Sorry
her lot who loves too well' (Pinafore) it comes as quite a surprise.
He is also overfond of a certain short cut to the flat leading-
note major (it is even used in Sir Roderic's song) and sometimes
takes advantage of the modulation to repeat the opening phrase
a whole tone lower. Note the resemblance between the first

56 THE MUSIC OF ARTHUR SULLIVAN

four bars of 'What means this mirth unseemly?' (lolanthe,
Act I) and the first eight bars of 'Bold, and fierce, and strong'
(Princess Ida, Act 1), which is all the more striking because both
passages are in die same key.

In the major, Sullivan's modulations are more varied, and

occasionally adventurous. When setting short verses say

two four-line stanzas he is sometimes content with one

simple modulation to the dominant, but he often adds interest

to die second stanza by passing through a Mark* key before

returning to the tonic or reaching the dominant for a second

time. 'When first my old, old love I knew' (Trial by Jury]

is an obvious early example and another (from Pinafore) can be

found in Ex. n on page 29. This is one of the favourite shots

in Sullivan's locker and it rarely misfires. Only now and again

does he proceed in this way to a 'bright' key during the second

stanza, but a passage from Ruddigore deserves quotation, because

it also shows how Sullivan could occasionally bring new life

to a threadbare harmonic cliche (a).

su46 Fare-wel! Go, bend the knee At vi - ceV shriae, Of life with me all hope re-

Generally speaking, Sullivan only modulated to the super-
tonic minor for the purpose of repeating the opening phrase
in that key (e.g. the refrain of the lullaby from Cox and Box) ;
this was a plausible imitation of his beloved Schubert, but he
managed to impart an individual touch to "When Britain

MODULATION 57

really ruled the waves' from lolanthe (see Ex. 147, page 125).
In his later works he often made a similar sequential repetition
over a tonic pedal, a poverty-stricken device which was one
of the distressing features of his decline from The Grand
Duke alone half a dozen instances could be quoted. As a rule
he was not at his best in this key-relationship, and only once,
so far as I can trace, did it become a corner-stone of the
structure. The brilliant exception must be cited it was
'The Sun whose rays' (The Mikado) which, as we have already
seen in Chapter IV, is a locus dassicus of Sullivan's skill in com-
bining melodic charm with rhythmic originality ; it is no less
remarkable for its harmonic symmetry and subtlety. Even the
first modulation to the dominant sounds different from usual ;
the second stanza starts in the dominant minor (of all un-
expected keys) and then doses, for practical purposes, on the
supertonic minor. The transitions are all splendidly handled ;
an unhurried succession of muted string chords (crotchets in
slow 3/4) forms the background, while an oboe touches up
one of the crucial modulations. In the refrain (to which on
the second time round flute and clarinet add their unobtrusive
decoration) there is an effective and unusually emphatic modu-
lation to the subdominant, and the cadence where Sullivan
so often lets us down is particularly attractive. This chapter
is part of an attempt to assess the composer's technical resources,
but the qualities which go to make up a work of art defy
analysis ; every bar of this song shows the hand of a talented
craftsman, but it could only have been conceived by a true
artist. It is in fact a little gem.

To his credit Sullivan hardly ever falls into the trap of
making an early modulation to the submediant (the relative
minor) over an obvious descending bass (e.g. C, B, A), though
once more The Grand Duke can provide an unhappy example
the setting of the significant opening line 'When you find

58 THE MUSIC OF ARTHUR SULLIVAN

youVe a broken-down critter'. He rarely makes an early move

to the relative minor at all ; when he does so in The Gondoliers

the words are again appropriate : 'Here is a fix unprecedented !

. . . Never was known a case so hard f His great standby is

the mediant ; his melodies so often lead in that direction that

one sometimes feels this stock modulation is in danger of

becoming a mannerism, though one notes with appreciation

how often he takes us to the mediant major rather than the

more hackneyed mediant minor. And he never shows his

resource to better advantage than when moving on therefrom

to the chord of the dominant that nearly always precedes the

refrain. The progressions are generally quite conventional,

but the effect is often charming and occasionally impressive ;

there is no question here of imitating Donizetti, Schubert,

Gounod or anyone else this is characteristic Sullivan. Most

of his music is so familiar that it is difficult to examine it

objectively, but a student might do worse than compare the

various means by which Sullivan, in the following cases, solves

that apparently simple harmonic problem how to move

naturally and fluently from the mediant to the dominant.

'Oh, gentlemen, listen I pray' (Trial by Jury)

'Oh, better far to live and die* (The Pirates ofPenzance)

'None shall part us from each other* (lolanthe)

'Comes a train of little ladies' (The Mikado)

'There lived a king, as I've been told' (The Gondoliers)

Even when Sullivan visits more distant regions he rarely
fails to find a smooth way home ; his escape back from D flat
major to E flat major in 'Were I thy bride' (The Yeomen) is
quoted in another connection on page 116 (Ex. 133). He faced
similar problems in those ensembles where each soloist makes
his or her own contribution in a different key, for this original
device, which is a unique feature of Sullivan's operas, necessi-
tates a series of contrasted returns to the main dominant. Two

MODULATION

good examples are * Expressive glances* (Princess Ida] where the
verses are in E major, C sharp minor, C major, and * Then
one of us will be a Queen ' (The Gondoliers] F major, D flat
major, D minor. An even better one is 'When a wooer
goes a-wooing' (The Yeomen) ; the first lead-in to the
refrain

Ex.47a

should be closely compared with the corresponding link
at the end of the second verse, which by the way starts in C
sharp minor, stresses the figure (a) on first violins and closes on
A major at the beginning of the first bar of Ex. 4yb.

Ex.47b

Phoebe

(This expressive quartet is full of subtle harmonic touches.
Note, for instance, the restrained chromatic progressions for the
wood-wind that form such an appropriate accompaniment to
the pathetic words 'Food for fishes Only fitted, Jester wishes
He were dead', and the strangely moving effect of a simple
chord of C flat major over a tonic D flat pedal in the coda
*Oh, die doing and undoing/)

60 THE MUSIC OF ARTHUR SULLIVAN

Of course it may be argued that facility in modulation

should be part and parcel of the working technique of any

composer worthy of the name, and admittedly Sullivan's skill

in manipulation indicates nothing more than exceptional talent ;

any possible claim he may have to greatness lies elsewhere.

Now and again, however, we find a harmonic transition which

of itself shows a touch of genius. The F major melody of

'When a merry maiden marries' (The Gondoliers} is hardly

distinguished; perhaps only the pretty accompaniment with

its graceful violin figure saves the opening from banality, and

a slightly varied repetition in the dominant does not sound very

promising. But Sullivan has a trick up his sleeve. He has

often modulated from the tome to the mediant ; now he uses a

familiar formula to take us from the dominant to its mediant,

and we find ourselves in the far-away key of E major. We

wonder how he is going to approach the refrain and we lay

our money on a slightly crude progression that occurred twice

in The Mikado (* Young man, despair' and 'Three little maids

from school are we'), but now the composer is a step ahead of

us. He by-passes the dominant and its seventh altogether and

takes us straight back to the tonic; moreover, what would

normally be a major operation is carried out so smoothly that

it is all over almost before we realise what has happened.

Ex.48

r""-

e tempo

Then the alrwith love is la - den; Ev-ry

IjEnf rTTTtU-Q-J * TTT^ 1

flow r is

a. rose

r* JjjKi.- :
'M^hi '

1,1

UJi

^,311

iLp i

"' ^^ V Mi ..I I I I \ t 1 | ' I**-"! 7 f ' I^-^IT ^

There is another brilliant strategic retreat from an apparently
untenable position at die start of Patience. Here is the passage
just before the rise of the curtain.

TONALITY AND MODULATION

Ex.49

I^BJ J J 1

ft 3

Ht"

ff^

Iffr

U j

* i-

j J J

Wil. =

M-

-4 :

j^__-

It looks like an impasse, but Sullivan knows a way out, a very
good one too. He repeats the phrase in D flat, makes a subtle
change at the fifth bar, and with Schubertian punctuality is
back on the tonic in time for the twenty love-sick maidens
to start their doleful ditty. (This little preamble is never heard
again, but when the maidens enter with Grosvenor in Act II
it will be noticed how cleverly the composer momentarily
catches the same drowsy atmosphere by twice introducing a
chord of D flat major in the key of E flat major.)

A rather similar situation arises in the opening chorus of
Ruddigore, but this time Sullivan hardly covers himself with
glory. The first few bars pin-point another of his inherent
harmonic weaknesses failure to establish the tonic key at the
start of a movement. An E flat major phrase (as vigorous as
the other was languorous) modulates immediately to the domi-
nant and then exactly repeats itself a whole tone lower, so that
very early on he is firmly lodged in the subdominant This is
tricky territory and (unlike Beethoven in the Prometheus over-
ture and the first movement of his first symphony) Sullivan
only reaches safety after a rather undignified scramble ; it is
a near thing and one is not surprised that he now finds it
necessary to emphasise the key of E flat with a long dominant
pedal. Worse is to come, for Zorah's solo in the middle of
the same number is a really dreadful affair with no feeling of
tonality at all. It starts in A flat major and any little character
it may have vanishes like the air out of a pricked balloon when
it modulates or rather collapses into D flat major that
subdominant again ! There is then an abrupt transition to C

62 THE MUSIC OF ARTHUR SULLIVAN

major, a key right out of context, and the subsequent return to
the main dominant (B flat) is handled nearly as clumsily. The
slipshod workmanship of these two dozen bars is so uncharacter-
istic that one cannot help thinking that the section must have
been hurriedly rewritten as part of a last-minute alteration,
possibly by a hand less sure than Sullivan's own.

In die opening passage of Ruddigore just referred to, the
repetition of die first phrase a tone lower (after modulating to
the dominant) involved consecutive major triads, on B flat and
D flat. Sullivan is very fond of these jumps from one common
chord to another. Often the move is up a minor third (as in
the Ruddigore instance) or down a minor third (as at the end of
the first stanza of * "When our gallant Norman foes' from The
Yeomen). Shifts down a major second are less frequent, but
one is made with good dramatic effect at Ko-ko's words
Tis Nanki-poo P in the first-act finale of The Mikado, and
Sullivan sometimes makes the same move in midstream, so
to speak. Dunhill has justly praised the Peers' Chorus in Act I
of lolanihe as a * truly magnificent piece of consciously aristo-
cratic music*, and of all its 'bold changes of key' none is more
brilliandy conceived than that from E flat to D flat for the
words 'Paragons of legislation*.

Used with imagination a shift to the flat submediant that
is, down a major third can be impressive (e.g. the return to
the tempo primo after the pih animate section of the chorus 'Be
not afraid* from Elijah) or even terrifying (the double-bass
entry at the end of the 'Ave Maria* from Otello). If Sullivan
never emulated Mendelssohn or Verdi, on the other hand he
rarely perpetrated such a gaffe as the first F major trombone
chord in the introduction to Carmen. He certainly overworked
die device ; it occurs seven times in the first twenty minutes of
Hie Gondoliers^ where it is used (twice) for discreet harmonic
contrast and (three times) to heighten the effect of a forte chorus

TONALITY AND MODULATION 63

entry only twice as a facile means of changing tonality.
But when it is made to serve this particular purpose no less than
six times in a single opera (The Pirates] , the composer is not
living up to our expectations. On his day, after all, he was
unexcelled in the art of moving naturally from key to key. He
proved this in the first-act finale of Patience, where (at second
letter D) a four-bar phrase is heard in succession in four differ-
ent keys, twice over a dominant pedal and twice over a tonic
pedal. No two of the transitions are exactly alike ; to locate
and analyse the tiny variations in melody and harmony that
ensure their smooth accomplishment could be a valuable lesson
in the art of composition.

CHAPTER VII

HARMONY USE OF CHROMATIC IDIOM

ALTHOUGH Sullivan's harmonic horizon was limited he was
quite capable of springing a surprise, even in his early days*
Here are two bars from the introduction to Kenilworth (1864).

!0*=f=

H r

t 7

Jj o tf

The setting of the words * Heard the dull sea-gull's mournful
cry*, etc. (Cox and Box, 1867) is both original and descriptive,
and in the short cantata On Shore and Sea (1871) we find this
unexpected progression.

Ex.51

Suspensions, accented passing-notes and the like are rarely
used except in a purely conventional way ; there is an inter-
esting resolution (a) in the introduction to Act II of Princess
Ida

x.52

r T

CHROMATIC IDIOM

but this passage from The Martyr ofAntioch shows a lack of
technical assurance.

Ex.53

More characteristic of the Sullivan we all know are the little
dabs of chromatic colour in the link between verse and refrain
in *I cannot tell what this love may be' (Patience] and this
drawn-out cadence from lolanthe.

Ex ; 54 Phyllis

On the other hand the progressions at the end of the beautiful
oboe solo in the * Invocation* from lolanthe and at the words
'For Gama would not dare To make a deadly foe Of Hilde-
brand' (Princess Ida, opening chorus) are obvious importations
from across the channel. The following passage (Patience,
Act I), which might have been lifted straight from Carmen,
has particular significance

Ex.55 . ,

ilji f ft 1

r IT

=4=1

y-*j--f- J t-

Cl J- g

1*^- -^

j LJ J
n

^tV^

for such simple chromatic transitions, generally pivoting
on one note (not necessarily enharmonic of course), were of
great value to Sullivan when he consciously and conscientiously

66 THE MUSIC OF ARTHUR SULLIVAN

tried to widen Ms outlook in The Golden Legend (based on

Longfellow's poem). They certainly lend a not unpleasant

flavour to Lucifer's glorification of Demon Alcohol in Scene i,

to the second half of Scene 3, and to the climax of Scene 6,

which are all so French and yet so very very respectable. This

one feels is music such as Massenet might have written for an

opera based on The Rosary or East Lynne. Unfortunately,

Sullivan's sincere attempt to make The Golden Legend as unlike

The Mikado as possible resulted in a hotch-potch of harmonic

styles. Some of the choruses are in his own worst Moody-and-

Sankey tradition. Elsewhere we are reminded of Parry

(whose Prometheus Unbounded been produced six years before),

especially in the short introduction to Scene i and in parts of

Scene 2, which opens with an exquisite little tone-picture of a

quiet summer evening when

Shafts of sunlight from the west
Paint the dusky windows red.

For the beginning of Scene 3, however, we go back to Schubert,
and the Epilogue (in the course of which one of the themes
from Scene 2 is used as a frtgal subject) shows Bizet shaking
hands with Mendelssohn in a hearty atmosphere of muscular
Christianity.

Nor is this all; Sullivan was so determined to show his
originality in this ri dotto that he invited a new harmonic trick
which might be called die * semitone slide'. In Scene 3 (at
letter C) he used it with superb effrontery by calmly altering
the key-signature from 2 flats to 3 sharps and then proceeding
merrily as before, but in the Prologue he lost his head completely
and wrote bar after bar of die sort of thing found in Ex. 56.
(The * slide* has been adopted by later composers, Richard
Strauss* Delius and Britten among them. Ex. 57 is taken from
Act I of Albert Herring.}

CHROMATIC IDIOM

Ex. 56 Allegro energico

Ex.57

sSffi

As the other main ingredients of the Prologue are pealing bells,
tremolando diminished sevenths, and repetitions in different keys
of a meaningless litde six-note quaver figure, it is not surprising
that one's first impression is one of unsophisticated atonality.
Closer study reveals that between letters L and M three frag-
ments of uninspired melody are combined in counterpoint
and confirms that the orchestration throughout is worthy of
Berlioz.

All this experience served Sullivan well in his next two
operas. There is unwonted harmonic richness in the accom-
paniment to Mad Margaret's song from Ruddigore, where in
this context the augmented fourth in the cadence for once
sounds natural rather than redundant.

Ex. SB

ver danbt-ingThatfor Cy-the-re-an po -

Sk Roderic's song has already been discussed (page 55), and
while some of the other music in this dramatic scene is only

68 THE MUSIC OF ARTHUR SULLIVAN

conventionally realistic, the progressions that accompany the
line 'Steps into the world once more 5 are not only unusual,
they are positively blood-chilling. At one point in the ghosts 5
second chorus there is even the suggestion of a whole-tone
scale, and the descriptive passage where they return to their
picture-frames could hardly have been written two years
earlier.

The same remark might perhaps apply to the opening
chorus of Act II, The Yeomen of the Guard, where there is an
impressive modulation to the leading-note major, and certainly
to the setting of Jack Point's words in Act I : ' Yet if the fee is
promptly paid', etc. Elsie Maynard, too, owes something to
her namesake of The Golden Legend. Compare 'The night is
calm and cloudless* with 'Leonard, my lov'd one, come to me*.
Not only are both songs in D flat major with an accompaniment
of repeated string chords (quavers in slow 12/8 time) ; both
make an unexpected transition to D major before reaching
thek climax on a conventional |. (Incidentally the florid
melisma at die end of the latter was evidently an afterthought.
The original vocal line was much simpler ; the deletion and
insertion can be plainly seen in Sullivan's manuscript.)

Another number from The Yeomen calls for comment here ;
the chorus * Here's a man of jollity 5 . Perhaps to introduce a
touch of sixteenth-century colour, Sullivan sets this in the
Lydian mode, which is rigidly maintained throughout. It
starts in F Lydian, but when the singers pause for breath on an
octave G the orchestra bursts in sforzando and then repeats the
whole affair pianissimo (during dialogue) in G Lydian. The
effect is quaint and rather incongruous. This curious little
piece with its strongly modal flavour and frequent changes of
time (3/4, 4/4, 5/4) seems to belong more to the world of
Vaughan Williams* Hugh the Drover than to that of Gilbert
and Sullivan's Merryman and his Maid.

CHROMATIC IDIOM 69

Wisely perhaps, the composer eschewed all such things in
The Gondoliers. Although in Fiametta's first solo 'Two there
are for whom, in duty' the ear is caught by two flute passages
apparently written for an enigmatic scale, it is soon clear that
to evoke an atmosphere of spontaneous gaiety Sullivan has no
need to hark back to the sixteenth century or look forward
timidly towards the twentieth. Indeed, the only serious
criticism that can be made of this opera as a whole is that some
of the accompaniments, particularly in the second act, are
altogether too unadventurous and in fact border on the common-
place ; there are few of the chromatic touches found even in
a comparatively early work like Patience. Exceptionally the
duet * There was a time', in the unusual key of F sharp major,
is a noteworthy example of Sullivan's mature style. Here he
adapts a favourite Bizet gambit to his own purpose and reaches
the flat submediant by direct modulation at the end of the
first stanza. It is interesting to compare the two different
settings of the second stanza. In the first verse sung by the
baritone there are two four-bar phrases in D major and the
subsequent modulation is rather spoilt by a premature chord
of the main dominant in its root position. (On the first beat
of the second bar in Ex. 59a a first inversion would have been
preferable.)

Ex.59a

In the second verse, however, a more flexible melody for the
soprano with a suitably higher tessitura is compressed
into two t Aree-bar phrases yet finds time to wander attractively
in and out of both G minor and D major, and the approach to
the dominant is more skilfully handled (Ex. 5pb).

THE MUSIC OF ARTHUR SULLIVAN
Ex.59b

: Mw lir r f if i f i

u u

Although it was too much to expect that a grand opera
would rival The Gondoliers in uninhibited tunefulness, one
might have hoped that by this time Sullivan would have learnt
to move with more assurance in that wider harmonic field
where he had recently been making tentative explorations.
But Ivanhoe is almost entirely retrograde. The richer texture
for which he was indebted to Parry and which was used so
appropriately here and there in Ruddigore and The Yeomen is
discarded in favour of shoddy, and there are few traces of the
refinement that graced the emasculated-Massenet scenes from
The Golden Legend or the mildly Wagnerian atmosphere

that was cat^ht now and again in the Macbeth overture.
Only in parts of the second and third scenes of Act II does the
composer use his new-found powers with even fair success,

In his last half-dozen or so operas where his melodic inspira-
tion seems to have almost exhausted itself, Sullivan's harmonic
style falls between two stools. He often reverts to the earlier
Pinafore tradition with little suggestion of Gallic subtlety, but
occasionally makes a rather pathetic attempt to revive our
flagging interest with a startlingly 'original' modulation. One
from G flat major to the enharmonic tonic minor (F sharp)
in the duet 'Mother, dearest Mother' from Haddon Hall is

CHROMATIC IDIOM 71

supportable, but another from The Rose of Persia (G major to
B flat major in the vocal score, G flat major to A major in the
manuscript) sets the teeth on edge. Even the * semitone slide'
is pressed back into service ; Grove quotes an instance from
Utopia Limited and here is one from The Rose of Persia where
both harmony and orchestration are perhaps meant to give
added point to the words.

Ex.61

He whomytmcall Hassan (Eteparefor great8ur-prise)Is quite an-otker man, The Snl-tan in dis-guiae!

This opera is slightly more worth attention than its immediate
predecessors. The duet * Suppose I say, suppose', overcoming
the handicap of some dreadful baby-talk, may be the best single
achievement of this distressing period. The thematic material
is simple without being commonplace, and some of the
harmonies are interesting. The home tonic is D flat major
and there are two contrasted interludes; the first is in G
major (!), and though the second starts in the more con-
ventional key of B flat minor it soon finds its way to D major.
Except for one rather crude ' slide' of dominant sevenths the
unusual progressions are skil&Uy handled ; if Sullivan has here
been successful in capturing spontaneity and charm in a com-
paratively unfamiliar idiom, the good deed is all the more
noticeable because it stands almost alone in a naughty world.
Here and there, too, he introduces a naive pseudo-oriental
effect by emphasising the flattened seventh ; the device is used
melodically rather than for harmonic colour and we are
inevitably reminded of the Mixolydian mode (perhaps in view
of the historical setting it should here be called the Greek
Lydian). Far more interesting is a remarkable passage (Ex. 62)
which occurs twice during the first-act finale.

THE MUSIC OF ARTHUR SULLIVAN

M l I M M M

If one listens with eyes closed, is it fanciful to be reminded of

Gerontius tossing restlessly on liis bed of pain ? Elgar was only

fifteen years Sullivan's junior, knew him quite well, and

seriously considered making him one of the 'friends pictured

within' to whom the Enigma Variations of 1899 were dedicated,

remembering perhaps that the elder man had sponsored the

first production of Caractacus at the Leeds Festival the previous

year. One would hardly have expected Sullivan to feel its

impact; might the boot possibly be on the other leg, and

The Dream of Gerontius owe some of its most magical moments

in some slight measure to a few bars from The Rose of Persia ? l

This was Sullivan's last completed opera; it is terribly

inconsistent The best numbers show traces of refinement,

even subtlety, that are very welcome after seven or eight years

of almost unrelieved triviality and tedium. It would be

pleasant indeed if one could feel that the composer was at last

dragging himself from the Slough of Despond. Unfortunately

other forces were also at work ; now and again, for practically

the first time in the operas, Sullivan descends here to the level

of musical-comedy vulgarity. We prefer to remember The

Rose of Persia for those few pages where the novelty of the

harmonic style lets in a breath of fresh air and gives us a fleeting

glimpse of what might have been.

1 In Act I of The Emerald Isk (vocal score, page 107) there is an unusual modula-
tion from E major to F sharp major which also has a whiff of Elgar about it. But
although the passage occurs in one of the numbers sketched out by Sullivan, it was
almost certainly completed and harmonised by German, whose style (in his serious
orchestral works at least) often shows a curious affinity with that of his great
contemporary.

CHAPTER VIII

COUNTERPOINT

MILLAIS rarely painted a nude, Dickens rarely wrote a short
story, George Robey rarely acted in Shakespeare, and Hutton
rarely made a late cut. When they did so their technique
enabled them to get away with it, but in the long run they
found such experiments unprofitable ; they were not typi-
cal manifestations of mastery. Similarly in the world of
music: Beethoven never composed a bad opera, Verdi a
bad string quartet, Delius a bad piano concerto or Sullivan a
bad fugue ; but healthy instinct warned them against devoting
too much time to what did not come naturally.

Though Sullivan never wrote a bad fugue, perhaps only in
the Epilogue to The Golden Legend did he complete a really
satisfying one. Even this hardly accorded with text-book
requirements, for he struck unorthodox chords by harmonising
the first statement of the subject, but in the passage between
the stretto and a conventional chorale he showed true musicia


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