112-515: The Festival Te Deum is the popular name for an 1872 composition by Arthur Sullivan , written to celebrate the recovery of Albert Edward, Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII of the United Kingdom ) from typhoid fever . The prince's father, Prince Albert , had died of typhoid fever in 1861, and so the prince's recovery was especial cause for celebration. The Festival Te Deum was first performed on 1 May 1872 at The Crystal Palace in
224-816: A Mendelssohnian style. With the exception of his Imperial March , composed for a royal occasion in 1893, the large-scale orchestral concert works also date from early in the composer's career. Reviewers and scholars often cite Mendelssohn as the most important influence on Sullivan. The music for The Tempest and the Irish Symphony , among other works, was seen by contemporary writers as strikingly Mendelssohnian. Percy Young writes that Sullivan's early affection for Mendelssohn remained evident throughout his composing career. Hughes remarks that although Sullivan emulated Mendelssohn in certain ways he seldom "lapsed into those harmonic clichés which mar some of Mendelssohn's more sentimental effusions". When The Tempest music
336-509: A busy conducting career in parallel with his composing career, including seven Leeds Festivals among many other appointments. Sullivan invariably conducted the opening nights of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas. Carte opened the next Gilbert and Sullivan piece, Patience , in April 1881 at London's Opera Comique , where their past three operas had played. In October, Patience transferred to
448-546: A cantata for the Leeds Festival, The Golden Legend , based on Longfellow 's poem of the same name. Apart from the comic operas, this proved to be Sullivan's best received full-length work. It was given hundreds of performances during his lifetime, and at one point he declared a moratorium on its presentation, fearing that it would become over-exposed. Only Handel 's Messiah was performed more often in Britain in
560-423: A career-ending stroke at the age of 45. Sullivan, reflecting on this, on his own long-standing kidney problems, and on his desire to devote himself to more serious music, replied to Carte, "[I]t is impossible for me to do another piece of the character of those already written by Gilbert and myself." Gilbert had already started work on a new opera in which the characters fell in love against their wills after taking
672-410: A cost of £51,000 on the site of an orphanage. In 1976 the academy acquired the houses situated on the north side and built between them a new opera theatre donated by the philanthropist Sir Jack Lyons and named after him and two new recital spaces, a recording studio, an electronic music studio, several practice rooms and office space. The academy again expanded its facilities in the late 1990s, with
784-637: A fine collection of lutes and guitars . The academy's museum displays many of these items. The Orchestral Library has approximately 4,500 sets of orchestral parts. Other collections include the libraries of Sir Henry Wood and Otto Klemperer . Soon after violinist Yehudi Menuhin 's death, the Royal Academy of Music acquired his personal archive, which includes sheet music marked up for performance, correspondence, news articles and photographs relating to Menuhin, autograph musical manuscripts, and several portraits of Paganini . Harriet Cohen bequeathed
896-458: A five-year agreement with Carte, requiring them to produce a new comic opera on six months' notice. On 22 May 1883 Sullivan was knighted by Queen Victoria for his "services ... rendered to the promotion of the art of music" in Britain. The musical establishment, and many critics, believed that this should end his career as a composer of comic opera – that a musical knight should not stoop below oratorio or grand opera . Having just signed
1008-474: A grand opera libretto from Julian Sturgis (who was recommended by Gilbert), and suggested to Gilbert that he revive an old idea for an opera set in colourful Venice . The comic opera was completed first: The Gondoliers (1889) was a piece described by Gervase Hughes as a pinnacle of Sullivan's achievement. It was the last great Gilbert and Sullivan success. The relationship between Gilbert and Sullivan suffered its most serious breach in April 1890, during
1120-572: A kidney stone. Pinafore ran for 571 performances in London, then the second-longest theatrical run in history, and more than 150 unauthorised productions were quickly mounted in America alone. Among other favourable reviews, The Times noted that the opera was an early attempt at the establishment of a "national musical stage" free from risqué French "improprieties" and without the "aid" of Italian and German musical models. The Times and several of
1232-414: A large collection of paintings, some photographs and her gold bracelet to the academy, with a request that the room in which the paintings were to be housed was named the "Arnold Bax Room". Noted for her performances of Bach and modern English music, she was a friend and advocate of Arnold Bax and also premièred Vaughan Williams' Piano Concerto—a work dedicated to her—in 1933. In 1886, Franz Liszt performed at
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#17327938177831344-401: A lovely woman, with the most generous smile one could possibly imagine, and the most beautiful teeth." Sullivan called her "the best amateur singer in London". She often performed Sullivan's songs at her famous Sunday soirées. She became particularly associated with "The Lost Chord", singing it both in private and in public, often with Sullivan accompanying her. When Sullivan died, he left her
1456-414: A magic lozenge. Sullivan wrote on 1 April 1884 that he had "come to the end of my tether" with the operas: "I have been continually keeping down the music in order that not one [syllable] should be lost. ... I should like to set a story of human interest & probability where the humorous words would come in a humorous (not serious) situation, & where, if the situation were a tender or dramatic one
1568-668: A military bandmaster, Sullivan composed his first anthem at the age of eight and was later a soloist in the boys' choir of the Chapel Royal . In 1856, at 14, he was awarded the first Mendelssohn Scholarship by the Royal Academy of Music , which allowed him to study at the academy and then at the Leipzig Conservatoire in Germany. His graduation piece, incidental music to Shakespeare 's The Tempest (1861),
1680-412: A model for Sullivan's comic opera music, "as evidenced in several rhythmic patterns and constructions of long finales". As a young man, Sullivan's conservative musical education led him to follow in the conventions of his predecessors. Later he became more adventurous; Richard Silverman, writing in 2009, points to the influence of Liszt in later works – a harmonic ambiguity and chromaticism – so that by
1792-462: A music teacher, which he hated and gave up as soon as he could; and as an arranger of vocal scores of popular operas. He took an early opportunity to compose several pieces for royalty in connection with the wedding of the Prince of Wales in 1863. With The Masque at Kenilworth ( Birmingham Festival , 1864), Sullivan began his association with works for voice and orchestra. While an organist at
1904-503: A one-act comic opera , Cox and Box , which is still widely performed. He wrote his first opera with W. S. Gilbert, Thespis , in 1871. Four years later, the impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte engaged Gilbert and Sullivan to create a one-act piece, Trial by Jury (1875). Its box-office success led to a series of twelve full-length comic operas by the collaborators. After the extraordinary success of H.M.S. Pinafore (1878) and The Pirates of Penzance (1879), Carte used his profits from
2016-402: A plot that did not depend on any supernatural device. The result was Gilbert and Sullivan's most successful work, The Mikado (1885). The piece ran for 672 performances, which was the second-longest run for any work of musical theatre, and one of the longest runs of any theatre piece, up to that time. In 1886 Sullivan composed his second and last large-scale choral work of the decade. It was
2128-488: A pupil of Mozart . He studied piano with William Sterndale Bennett (the future head of the academy) and Arthur O'Leary . During this first year at the academy Sullivan continued to sing solos with the Chapel Royal, which provided a small amount of spending money. Sullivan's scholarship was extended to a second year, and in 1858, in what his biographer Arthur Jacobs calls an "extraordinary gesture of confidence",
2240-465: A reference to the hymn tune St. Anne , which is repeated in the final section, suggesting that divine intervention played a part in the recovery of the Prince. Handel 's influence is heard throughout the piece, including in the fugues, and Sullivan uses key selection to emphasize sacred and secular sections of the piece. Soprano solo or choral sections alternate in a broad dynamic range to illustrate
2352-509: A second year of study at Leipzig. For his third and last year there, his father scraped together the money for living expenses, and the conservatoire assisted by waiving its fees. Sullivan's graduation piece, completed in 1861, was a suite of incidental music to Shakespeare 's The Tempest . Revised and expanded, it was performed at the Crystal Palace in 1862, a year after his return to London; The Musical Times described it as
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#17327938177832464-1050: A selection of historical English pianos from 1790 to 1850, from the famous Mobbs Collection, original manuscripts by Purcell, Mendelssohn, Liszt, Brahms, Sullivan and Vaughan Williams, musical memorabilia and other exhibits. Former students include Olga Athaide Craen , John Barbirolli , Judith Bingham , Dennis Brain , Alan Bush , Doreen Carwithen , Rebecca Clarke , Jacob Collier , Clifford Curzon , Louis Dowdeswell , Edward Gardner , Lesley Garrett , David Patrick Gedge Evelyn Glennie , Eleanor Greenwood , Amy Horrocks , Dorothy Howell , Katherine Jenkins , Elton John , Annie Lennox , Kate Loder , Felicity Lott , Moura Lympany , Margot MacGibbon , Vanessa-Mae , Denis Matthews , Michael Nyman , Elsie Southgate , Eva Ruth Spalding , Florence Margaret Spencer Palmer , Ashan Pillai , Simon Rattle , Cecile Stevens , Arthur Sullivan , Eva Turner , Maxim Vengerov , Kate Lucy Ward , E. Florence Whitlock , Margaret Jones Wiles , Carol Anne Williams and Henry Wood . The current principal of
2576-399: A sensation. He began building a reputation as England's most promising young composer. Sullivan embarked on his composing career with a series of ambitious works, interspersed with hymns, parlour songs and other light pieces in a more commercial vein. His compositions were not enough to support him financially, and between 1861 and 1872 he worked as a church organist, which he enjoyed; as
2688-480: A special "Thanksgiving Day" concert organised by the Prince's brother, Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh , who was a friend of Sullivan's and commissioned the piece. Sullivan was allowed to dedicate the work to the prince's mother, Queen Victoria : an unusual honour. The soloist was Therese Titiens , who had been the soprano soloist in Sullivan's earlier The Prodigal Son . The libretto uses an English translation of
2800-475: A surprise hit, earning glowing praise from the critics and playing for 300 performances over its first few seasons. The Daily Telegraph commented that the piece illustrated the composer's "great capacity for dramatic writing of the lighter class", and other reviews emphasised the felicitous combination of Gilbert's words and Sullivan's music. One wrote, "it seems, as in the great Wagnerian operas, as though poem and music had proceeded simultaneously from one and
2912-437: A variety of styles, including those of Schubert , Verdi , Bach and Wagner . Visiting a synagogue , he was so struck by some of the cadences and progressions of the music that thirty years later he could recall them for use in his grand opera , Ivanhoe . He became friendly with the future impresario Carl Rosa and the violinist Joseph Joachim , among others. The academy renewed Sullivan's scholarship to allow him
3024-507: A volume of The Hymnal Noted and arranged for the boy's compositions to be performed; one anthem was performed at the Chapel Royal in St James's Palace under the direction of Sir George Smart . In 1856 the Royal Academy of Music awarded the first Mendelssohn Scholarship to the 14-year-old Sullivan, granting him a year's training at the academy. His principal teacher there was John Goss , whose own teacher, Thomas Attwood , had been
3136-714: Is " The Long Day Closes " (1868). Sullivan's last major work of the 1860s was a short oratorio , The Prodigal Son , first given in Worcester Cathedral as part of the 1869 Three Choirs Festival to much praise. Sullivan's most enduring orchestral work, the Overture di Ballo , was composed for the Birmingham Festival in 1870. The same year, Sullivan first met the poet and dramatist W. S. Gilbert. In 1871 Sullivan published his only song cycle , The Window , to words by Tennyson , and he wrote
3248-526: Is celebrated not only for writing the Savoy operas and his other works, but also for his influence on the development of modern American and British musical theatre. Sullivan never married, but he had serious love affairs with several women. The first was with Rachel Scott Russell (1845–1882), the daughter of the engineer John Scott Russell . Sullivan was a frequent visitor at the Scott Russell home in
3360-667: The Glasgow Choral Union concerts (1875–77) and the Royal Aquarium Theatre , London (1876). In addition to his appointment as Professor of Composition at the Royal Academy of Music, of which he was a Fellow, he was appointed as the first Principal of the National Training School of Music in 1876. He accepted the latter post reluctantly, fearing that discharging the duties thoroughly would leave too little time for composing; in this he
3472-538: The Philharmonic Society gave the first performance of his overture Marmion . The reviewer for The Times called it "another step in advance on the part of the only composer of any remarkable promise that just at present we can boast." In October, Sullivan travelled with George Grove to Vienna in search of neglected scores by Schubert. They unearthed manuscript copies of symphonies and vocal music, and were particularly elated by their final discovery,
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3584-543: The Royal Italian Opera, Covent Garden , he composed his first ballet, L'Île Enchantée (1864). His Irish Symphony and Cello Concerto (both 1866) were his only works in their respective genres. In the same year, his Overture in C ( In Memoriam ) , commemorating the recent death of his father, was a commission from the Norwich Festival . It achieved considerable popularity. In June 1867
3696-742: The SOCRATES student and staff exchange programme. In 1991, the academy introduced a fully accredited degree in performance studies, and in September 1999, it became a full constituent college of the University of London, in both cases becoming the first UK conservatoire to do so. The academy has students from over 50 countries, following diverse programmes including instrumental performance, conducting, composition, jazz, musical theatre, historical performance, and opera. The academy has an established relationship with King's College London , particularly
3808-427: The 1880s and 1890s. It remained in the repertory until about the 1920s, but since then it has seldom been performed; it received its first professional recording in 2001. The musical scholar and conductor David Russell Hulme writes that the work influenced Elgar and Walton . Ruddigore followed The Mikado at the Savoy in 1887. It was profitable, but its nine-month run was disappointing compared with most of
3920-509: The 1880s included two cantatas , The Martyr of Antioch (1880) and The Golden Legend (1886), his most popular choral work. He also wrote incidental music for West End productions of several Shakespeare plays, and held conducting and academic appointments. Sullivan's only grand opera , Ivanhoe , though initially successful in 1891, has rarely been revived. In his last decade Sullivan continued to compose comic operas with various librettists and wrote other major and minor works. He died at
4032-609: The Department of Music, whose students receive instrumental tuition at the academy. In return, many students at the academy take a range of humanities choices at King's, and its extended academic musicological curriculum. The Junior Academy, for pupils under the age of 18, meets every Saturday. The academy's library contains over 160,000 items, including significant collections of early printed and manuscript materials and audio facilities. The library also houses archives dedicated to Sir Arthur Sullivan and Sir Henry Wood . Among
4144-456: The Guard opened, Sullivan turned again to Shakespeare, composing incidental music for Henry Irving 's Lyceum Theatre production of Macbeth (1888). Sullivan wished to produce further serious works with Gilbert. He had collaborated with no other librettist since 1875. But Gilbert felt that the reaction to The Yeomen of the Guard had "not been so convincing as to warrant us in assuming that
4256-677: The Library's most valuable possessions are the autograph manuscripts of Purcell's The Fairy-Queen , Sullivan's The Mikado and The Martyr of Antioch , Vaughan Williams ' Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis and Serenade to Music , and the newly discovered Handel Gloria . A grant from the National Heritage Memorial Fund has assisted in the purchase of the Robert Spencer Collection—a set of Early English Song and Lute music, as well as
4368-514: The London contingent of the Handel Festival Choir of 2,000 performers constituted the chorus, and the audience numbered 26,000. The Times wrote, "we are glad to be able to speak in terms of unqualified praise. It is not only, in our opinion, the most finished composition for which we are indebted to [Sullivan's] pen but an honour to English art." Sullivan was "uproariously cheered" at the premiere. The first section begins with
4480-547: The Royal Academy of Music perform in other venues around London including Kings Place , St Marylebone Parish Church and the South Bank Centre . The academy's public museum is situated in the York Gate building, which is connected to the academy's building via a basement link. The museum houses the academy's collections, including a major collection of Cremonese stringed instruments dated between 1650 and 1740,
4592-594: The Royal Academy of Music, Hon ARAM). Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Academy of Music (Hon FRAM) is awarded by the Governing Body of the academy. As a full member of the University of London , the academy can nominate people to the University of London honorary doctorate (Hon DMus). The Royal Academy of Music manages the Royal Academy of Music Bach Prize (sponsored by the Kohn Foundation ),
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4704-479: The Savoy, increasingly viewed the composition of comic operas as unimportant, beneath his skills, and also repetitious. After Iolanthe , Sullivan had not intended to write a new work with Gilbert, but he suffered a serious financial loss when his broker went bankrupt in November 1882. Therefore, he concluded that his financial needs obliged him to continue writing Savoy operas. In February 1883, he and Gilbert signed
4816-1373: The Universities of Cambridge (1876) and Oxford (1879); Chevalier, Légion d'honneur , France (1878); Order of the Medjidie conferred by the Sultan of Turkey (1888); and appointment as a Member of the Fourth Class of the Royal Victorian Order (MVO) in 1897. Sullivan's operas have often been adapted, first in the 19th century as dance pieces and in foreign adaptations of the operas themselves. Since then, his music has been made into ballets ( Pineapple Poll (1951) and Pirates of Penzance – The Ballet! (1991)) and musicals ( The Swing Mikado (1938), The Hot Mikado (1939) and Hot Mikado (1986), Hollywood Pinafore and Memphis Bound (both 1945), The Black Mikado (1975), etc.). His operas are frequently performed, and also parodied , pastiched , quoted and imitated in comedy routines, advertising, law, film, television, and other popular media . He has been portrayed on screen in The Story of Gilbert and Sullivan (1953) and Topsy-Turvy (2000). He
4928-474: The academy and New York's Juilliard School at the Proms and at New York's Lincoln Center. Conductors who have recently worked with the orchestras include Semyon Bychkov , Daniel Barenboim , Sir Simon Rattle , Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Christian Thielemann . Famous people who have conducted the academy's orchestra also include Carl Maria von Weber in 1826 and Richard Strauss in 1926. For many years,
5040-558: The academy celebrated the work of a living composer with a festival in the presence of the composer. Previous composer festivals at the academy have been devoted to the work of Witold Lutosławski , Michael Tippett , Krzysztof Penderecki , Olivier Messiaen , Hans Werner Henze , Luciano Berio , Elliott Carter , Stavros Papanikolaou , as well as academy graduates, Alfred Schnittke , György Ligeti , Franco Donatoni , Galina Ustvolskaya , Arvo Pärt , György Kurtág and Mauricio Kagel . In February–March 2006, an academy festival celebrated
5152-563: The academy is Jonathan Freeman-Attwood , appointed in July 2008. The Patron was Queen Elizabeth II and the president is the Duchess of Gloucester . Diana, Princess of Wales , was the president of the academy from 1985 until 1997. The Royal Academy of Music publishes every year a list of persons who have been selected to be awarded one of the Royal Academy's honorary awards. These awards are for alumni who have distinguished themselves within
5264-613: The academy to celebrate the creation of the Franz Liszt Scholarship and in 1843 Mendelssohn was made an honorary member of the academy. Academy students perform regularly in the academy's concert venues, and also nationally and internationally under conductors such as the late Sir Colin Davis , Yan Pascal Tortelier , Christoph von Dohnányi , the late Sir Charles Mackerras and Trevor Pinnock . In summer 2012, John Adams conducted an orchestra which combined students from
5376-571: The addition of 1–5 York Gate, designed by John Nash in 1822, to house the new museum , a musical theatre studio and several teaching and practice rooms. To link the main building and 1–5 York Gate a new underground passage and the underground barrel-vaulted 150-seat David Josefowitz recital hall were built on the courtyard between the mentioned structures. The academy's current facilities are situated on Marylebone Road in central London adjacent to Regent's Park . The Royal Academy of Music offers training from infant level (Junior Academy), with
5488-478: The age of 14, Sullivan visited the family often and became guardian to the children. In 1883 Charlotte and six of her children emigrated to Los Angeles , California, leaving the oldest boy, "Bertie" , in Sullivan's sole care. Despite his reservations about the move to the United States, Sullivan paid all the costs and gave substantial financial support to the family. A year later, Charlotte died, leaving
5600-480: The age of 58, regarded as Britain's foremost composer. His comic opera style served as a model for generations of musical theatre composers that followed, and his music is still frequently performed, recorded and pastiched . Sullivan was born on 13 May 1842 in Lambeth , London, the younger of the two children, both boys, of Thomas Sullivan (1805–1866) and his wife, Mary Clementina née Coghlan (1811–1882). His father
5712-498: The autograph manuscript of that song, along with other bequests. Ronalds was separated from her American husband, but they never divorced. Social conventions of the time compelled Sullivan and Ronalds to keep their relationship private. She apparently became pregnant at least twice and procured abortions in 1882 and 1884. Sullivan had a roving eye, and his diary records the occasional quarrels when Ronalds discovered his other liaisons, but he always returned to her. Around 1889 or 1890
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#17327938177835824-466: The band and composed an anthem , "By the Waters of Babylon", when he was eight. He later recalled: I was intensely interested in all that the band did, and learned to play every wind instrument, with which I formed not merely a passing acquaintance, but a real, life-long, intimate friendship. I gradually learned the peculiarities of each ... what it could do and what it was unable to do. I learned in
5936-482: The best possible way how to write for an orchestra. While recognising the boy's obvious talent, his father knew the insecurity of a musical career and discouraged him from pursuing it. Sullivan studied at a private school in Bayswater . In 1854 he persuaded his parents and the headmaster to allow him to apply for membership in the choir of the Chapel Royal . Despite concerns that, at nearly 12 years of age, Sullivan
6048-490: The casinos enabled him to indulge his passion for gambling. He enjoyed hosting private dinners and entertainments at his home, often featuring famous singers and well-known actors. In 1865 he was initiated into Freemasonry and was Grand Organist of the United Grand Lodge of England in 1887 during Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee . Sullivan's talent and native charm gained him the friendship of many, not only in
6160-569: The children to be raised mostly by her brother. From June to August 1885, after The Mikado opened, Sullivan visited the family in Los Angeles and took them on a sightseeing trip of the American west. Throughout the rest of his life, and in his will, he contributed financially to Fred's children, continuing to correspond with them and to be concerned with their education, marriages and financial affairs. Bertie remained with his Uncle Arthur for
6272-842: The composer's memory featuring a weeping Muse was erected in the Victoria Embankment Gardens in London and is inscribed with Gilbert's words from The Yeomen of the Guard : "Is life a boon? If so, it must befall that Death, whene'er he call, must call too soon". Sullivan wished to be buried in Brompton Cemetery with his parents and brother, but by order of the Queen he was buried in St Paul's Cathedral . In addition to his knighthood, honours awarded to Sullivan in his lifetime included Doctor in Music, honoris causa , by
6384-434: The earlier Savoy operas. For their next piece, Gilbert submitted another version of the magic lozenge plot, which Sullivan again rejected. Gilbert finally proposed a comparatively serious opera, to which Sullivan agreed. Although it was not a grand opera, The Yeomen of the Guard (1888) provided him with the opportunity to compose his most ambitious stage work to date. As early as 1883 Sullivan had been under pressure from
6496-720: The early 1870s were the Festival Te Deum (Crystal Palace, 1872) and the oratorio The Light of the World (Birmingham Festival, 1873). He provided incidental music for productions of The Merry Wives of Windsor at the Gaiety in 1874 and Henry VIII at the Theatre Royal, Manchester, in 1877. He continued to compose hymns throughout the decade. In 1873 Sullivan contributed songs to Burnand's Christmas "drawing room extravaganza", The Miller and His Man . In 1875
6608-443: The end of 1871 John Hollingshead , proprietor of London's Gaiety Theatre , commissioned Sullivan to work with Gilbert to create the burlesque -style comic opera Thespis . Played as a Christmas entertainment, it ran through to Easter 1872, a good run for such a piece. Gilbert and Sullivan then went their separate ways until they collaborated on three parlour ballads in late 1874 and early 1875. Sullivan's large-scale works of
6720-483: The end of the 1870s. His first popular song was "Orpheus with his Lute" (1866), and a well-received part song was "Oh! Hush thee, my Babie" (1867). The best known of his songs is " The Lost Chord " (1877, lyrics by Adelaide Anne Procter ), written at the bedside of his brother during Fred's last illness. The sheet music for his best-received songs sold in large numbers and was an important part of his income. In this decade, Sullivan's conducting appointments included
6832-551: The expenses of the lavish production, although it was the longest run at the Savoy in the 1890s. Sullivan came to disapprove of the leading lady, Nancy McIntosh , and refused to write another piece featuring her; Gilbert insisted that she must appear in his next opera. Instead, Sullivan teamed up again with his old partner, F. C. Burnand. The Chieftain (1894), a heavily revised version of their earlier two-act opera, The Contrabandista , flopped. Gilbert and Sullivan reunited one more time, after McIntosh announced her retirement from
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#17327938177836944-499: The first of a series of incidental music scores for productions of Shakespeare plays. He also composed a dramatic cantata , On Shore and Sea , for the opening of the London International Exhibition, and the hymn " Onward, Christian Soldiers ", with words by Sabine Baring-Gould . The Salvation Army adopted the latter as its favoured processional , and it became Sullivan's best-known hymn. At
7056-488: The five-year agreement, Sullivan suddenly felt trapped. The next opera, Princess Ida (1884, the duo's only three-act, blank verse work), had a shorter run than its four predecessors; Sullivan's score was praised. With box office receipts lagging in March 1884, Carte gave the six months' notice, under the partnership contract, requiring a new opera. Sullivan's close friend, the composer Frederic Clay , had recently suffered
7168-418: The following year. Sullivan returned to comic opera, but because of the fracture with Gilbert, he and Carte sought other collaborators. Sullivan's next piece was Haddon Hall (1892), with a libretto by Sydney Grundy based loosely on the legend of the elopement of Dorothy Vernon with John Manners. Although still comic, the tone and style of the work was considerably more serious and romantic than most of
7280-532: The fund from performances and the sale of sheet music and related merchandise. In The Rose of Persia (1899), Sullivan returned to his comic roots, writing to a libretto by Basil Hood that combined an exotic Arabian Nights setting with plot elements of The Mikado . Sullivan's tuneful score was well received, and the opera proved to be his most successful full-length collaboration apart from those with Gilbert. Another opera with Hood, The Emerald Isle , quickly went into preparation, but Sullivan died before it
7392-403: The grand finale. Its six-month run was considered a great achievement. The Beauty Stone (1898), with a libretto by Arthur Wing Pinero and J. Comyns Carr, was based on mediaeval morality plays . The collaboration did not go well: Sullivan wrote that Pinero and Comyns Carr were "gifted and brilliant men, with no experience in writing for music", and, when he asked for alterations to improve
7504-413: The incidental music to Rosamunde . Sullivan's first attempt at opera, The Sapphire Necklace (1863–64) to a libretto by Henry F. Chorley , was not produced and is now lost, except for the overture and two songs that were separately published. His first surviving opera, Cox and Box (1866), was written for a private performance. It then received charity performances in London and Manchester, and
7616-635: The individual musical character of a piece – ranging from the "nautical air of H.M.S Pinafore " to "the swift Mediterranean lightness of The Gondoliers " and "the bleakness of Torquilstone in Ivanhoe ". Royal Academy of Music The Royal Academy of Music ( RAM ) in London , England , is one of the oldest music schools in the UK, founded in 1822 by John Fane and Nicolas-Charles Bochsa . It received its royal charter in 1830 from King George IV with
7728-431: The institution comprised were departitioned, one conjectured, with fearsome violence. Wherefore else the need for those torturous tunnellings, that labyrinthine intricacy of passages, the cul-de-sacs, and follies? It took the average new student about a month to get his or her bearings." In 1911 the institution moved to the current premises, designed by Sir Ernest George (which include the 450-seat Duke's Hall), built at
7840-542: The manager of the Royalty Theatre , Richard D'Oyly Carte , needed a short piece to fill out a bill with Offenbach's La Périchole . Carte had conducted Sullivan's Cox and Box . Remembering that Gilbert had suggested a libretto to him, Carte engaged Sullivan to set it, and the result was the one-act comic opera Trial by Jury . Trial , starring Sullivan's brother Fred as the Learned Judge, became
7952-405: The mid-1860s, and by 1865 the affair was in full bloom. Rachel's parents did not approve of a possible union with a young composer of uncertain financial prospects, but the two continued to see each other covertly. At some point in 1868 Sullivan started a simultaneous (and secret) affair with Rachel's sister Louise (1841–1878). Both relationships ended by early 1869. Sullivan's longest love affair
8064-399: The music profession (Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music, FRAM), distinguished musicians who are not alumni (Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Music, Hon RAM), alumni who have made a significant contribution to the music profession (Associate of the Royal Academy of Music, ARAM) and to people who are not alumni but have offered important services to the institution (Honorary Associate of
8176-465: The musical establishment to write a grand opera. In 1885 he told an interviewer, "The opera of the future is a compromise [among the French, German and Italian schools] – a sort of eclectic school, a selection of the merits of each one. I myself will make an attempt to produce a grand opera of this new school. ... Yes, it will be an historical work, and it is the dream of my life." After The Yeomen of
8288-492: The musical establishment, such as Grove, Chorley and Herman Klein, but also in society circles, such as Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh . Sullivan enjoyed playing tennis; according to George Grossmith , "I have seen some bad lawn-tennis players in my time, but I never saw anyone so bad as Arthur Sullivan". Sullivan was devoted to his parents, particularly his mother. He corresponded regularly with her when away from London, until her death in 1882. Henry Lytton wrote, "I believe there
8400-405: The new, larger, state-of-the-art Savoy Theatre , built with the profits of the previous Gilbert and Sullivan works. The rest of the partnership's collaborations were produced at the Savoy, and are widely known as the " Savoy operas ". Iolanthe (1882), the first new opera to open at the Savoy, was Gilbert and Sullivan's fourth hit in a row. Sullivan, despite the financial security of writing for
8512-464: The operas with Gilbert. It ran for 204 performances, and was praised by critics. In 1895 Sullivan once more provided incidental music for the Lyceum, this time for J. Comyns Carr 's King Arthur . With the aid of an intermediary, Sullivan's music publisher Tom Chappell , the three partners were reunited in 1892. Their next opera, Utopia, Limited (1893), ran for 245 performances, barely covering
8624-457: The other papers agreed that although the piece was entertaining, Sullivan was capable of higher art, and frivolous light opera would hold him back. This criticism would follow Sullivan throughout his career. In 1879 Sullivan suggested to a reporter from The New York Times the secret of his success with Gilbert: "His ideas are as suggestive for music as they are quaint and laughable. His numbers ... always give me musical ideas." Pinafore
8736-570: The partnership to build the Savoy Theatre in 1881, and their joint works became known as the Savoy operas . Among the best known of the later operas are The Mikado (1885) and The Gondoliers (1889). Gilbert broke from Sullivan and Carte in 1890, after a quarrel over expenses at the Savoy. They reunited in the 1890s for two more operas, but these did not achieve the popularity of their earlier works. Sullivan's infrequent serious pieces during
8848-568: The partnership. Gilbert took legal action against Carte and Sullivan, vowing to write no more for the Savoy, and so the partnership came to an acrimonious end. Sullivan wrote to Gilbert in September 1890 that he was "physically and mentally ill over this wretched business. I have not yet got over the shock of seeing our names coupled ... in hostile antagonism over a few miserable pounds". Sullivan's only grand opera, Ivanhoe , based on Walter Scott 's novel , opened at Carte's new Royal English Opera House on 31 January 1891. Sullivan completed
8960-816: The piece in 1988 and later the recording was released on CD. The complete text of the Festival Te Deum is as follows, ignoring the repetitions: Arthur Sullivan Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan MVO (13 May 1842 – 22 November 1900) was an English composer. He is best known for 14 operatic collaborations with the dramatist W. S. Gilbert , including H.M.S. Pinafore , The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado . His works include 24 operas, 11 major orchestral works, ten choral works and oratorios , two ballets, incidental music to several plays, and numerous church pieces, songs, and piano and chamber pieces. His hymns and songs include " Onward, Christian Soldiers " and " The Lost Chord ". The son of
9072-403: The public want something more earnest still". He proposed instead that Sullivan should go ahead with his plan to write a grand opera, but should continue also to compose comic works for the Savoy. Sullivan was not immediately persuaded. He replied, "I have lost the liking for writing comic opera, and entertain very grave doubts as to my power of doing it." Nevertheless, Sullivan soon commissioned
9184-523: The rest of the composer's life. Three of Sullivan's cousins, the daughters of his uncle John Thomas Sullivan, performed with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company : Rose, Jane ("Jennie") and Kate Sullivan, the first two of whom used the stage surname Hervey. Kate was a chorister who defected to the Comedy Opera Company's rival production of H.M.S. Pinafore , where she had the opportunity to play the leading soprano role, Josephine, in 1879. Jennie
9296-557: The run of The Gondoliers , when Gilbert objected to Carte's financial accounts for the production, including a charge to the partnership for the cost of new carpeting for the Savoy Theatre lobby. Gilbert believed that this was a maintenance expense that should be charged to Carte alone. Carte was building a new theatre to present Sullivan's forthcoming grand opera, and Sullivan sided with Carte, going so far as to sign an affidavit that contained erroneous information about old debts of
9408-412: The same brain." A few months later, another Sullivan one-act comic opera opened: The Zoo , with a libretto by B. C. Stephenson . It was less successful than Trial , and for the next 15 years Sullivan's sole operatic collaborator was Gilbert; the partners created a further twelve operas together. Sullivan also turned out more than 80 popular songs and parlour ballads , most of them written before
9520-460: The scholarship committee extended his grant for a third year so that he could study in Germany, at the Leipzig Conservatoire . There, Sullivan studied composition with Julius Rietz and Carl Reinecke , counterpoint with Moritz Hauptmann and Ernst Richter , and the piano with Louis Plaidy and Ignaz Moscheles . He was trained in Mendelssohn 's ideas and techniques but was also exposed to
9632-430: The score too late to meet Carte's planned production date, and costs mounted; Sullivan was required to pay Carte a contractual penalty of £3,000 (equivalent to £427,000 in 2023) for his delay. The production lasted for 155 consecutive performances, an unprecedented run for a grand opera, and earned good notices for its music. Afterwards, Carte was unable to fill the new opera house with other opera productions and sold
9744-726: The senior Academy awarding the LRAM diploma, BMus and higher degrees to PhD / DMus. The former degree GRSM , equivalent to a university honours degree and taken by some students, was phased out in the 1990s. All undergraduates now take the University of London degree of BMus. Most academy students are classical performers: strings, piano, vocal studies including opera, brass, woodwind, conducting and choral conducting, composition, percussion, harp, organ, accordion, guitar. There are also departments for historical performance, musical theatre performance and jazz. The academy collaborates with other conservatoires worldwide, including participating in
9856-585: The sexual relationship evidently ended – he started to refer to her in his diary as "Auntie" – but she remained a constant companion for the rest of his life. In 1896 the 54-year-old Sullivan proposed marriage to the 22-year-old Violet Beddington (1874–1962), but she refused him. Sullivan loved to spend time in France (both in Paris and on the Riviera ), where his acquaintances included European royalty and where
9968-528: The stage, for The Grand Duke (1896). It failed, and Sullivan never worked with Gilbert again, although their operas continued to be revived with success at the Savoy. In May 1897 Sullivan's full-length ballet, Victoria and Merrie England , opened at the Alhambra Theatre to celebrate the Queen's Diamond Jubilee . The work celebrates English history and culture, with the Victorian period as
10080-536: The structure, they refused. The opera, moreover, was too serious for the Savoy audiences' tastes. It was a critical failure and ran for only seven weeks. In 1899, to benefit "the wives and children of soldiers and sailors" on active service in the Boer War , Sullivan composed the music of a song, " The Absent-Minded Beggar ", to a text by Rudyard Kipling , which became an instant sensation and raised an unprecedented £300,000 (equivalent to £42,700,000 in 2023) for
10192-551: The support of the first Duke of Wellington . The academy provides undergraduate and postgraduate training across instrumental performance, composition, jazz , musical theatre and opera , and recruits musicians from around the world, with a student community representing more than 50 nationalities. It is committed to lifelong learning, from Junior Academy, which trains musicians up to the age of 18, through Open Academy community music projects, to performances and educational events for all ages. The academy's museum houses one of
10304-476: The text. The piece, in keeping with the spirit of the occasion, is often upbeat, even exuberant in places. While Sullivan was writing the Festival Te Deum, his first opera with W. S. Gilbert , Thespis , was still being performed. Sullivan was also busy composing The Light of the World (an oratorio for the Birmingham festival), and a cantata for the opening of a London exhibition. The BBC broadcast
10416-499: The theatre. Despite the initial success of Ivanhoe , some writers blamed it for the failure of the opera house, and it soon passed into obscurity. Herman Klein called the episode "the strangest comingling of success and failure ever chronicled in the history of British lyric enterprise!" Later in 1891 Sullivan composed music for Tennyson 's The Foresters , which ran well at Daly's Theatre in New York in 1892, but failed in London
10528-473: The time of The Golden Legend Sullivan had abandoned a home key altogether for the prelude. Sullivan disliked much of Wagner's Musikdrama , but he modelled the overture to The Yeomen of the Guard on the prelude of Die Meistersinger , which he described as "the greatest comic opera ever written". Saremba writes that in works from his middle and later years, Sullivan was inspired by Verdi's example both in details of orchestration, and in la tinta musical –
10640-407: The traditional Te Deum , in praise of God, with the addition of a " Domine salvum fac " ("O Lord, save the Queen!"), divided up into seven self-contained sections. There are multiple choral fugues throughout, and the score calls for instrumentation on a grand scale, including the addition of a full military band to the orchestra, chorus, and organ in the final section. At the original performance,
10752-414: The violin virtuoso Niccolò Paganini , who first visited London 175 years earlier in 1831. The festival included a recital by academy professor Maxim Vengerov , who performed on Il Cannone Guarnerius , Paganini's favourite violin. Academy instrumentalists and musical theatre students have also performed in a series of concerts with the academy alumnus Sir Elton John . The students and ensembles of
10864-446: The words would be of similar character." In a lengthy exchange of correspondence, Sullivan pronounced Gilbert's plot sketch (particularly the "lozenge" element) unacceptably mechanical, and too similar in both its grotesque "elements of topsyturveydom" and in actual plot to their earlier work, especially The Sorcerer . He repeatedly requested that Gilbert find a new subject. The impasse was finally resolved on 8 May when Gilbert proposed
10976-597: The world's most significant collections of musical instruments and artefacts, including stringed instruments by Stradivari , Guarneri , and members of the Amati family; manuscripts by Purcell , Handel and Vaughan Williams ; and a collection of performing materials that belonged to leading performers. It is a constituent college of the University of London and a registered charity under English law. Famous academy alumni include Henry Wood , Simon Rattle , Brian Ferneyhough , Elton John and Annie Lennox . The academy
11088-620: Was a D'Oyly Carte chorister for fourteen years. Rose took principal roles in many of the companion pieces that played with the Savoy operas. Sullivan's works comprise 24 operas, 11 full orchestral works, ten choral works and oratorios, two ballets, one song cycle, incidental music to several plays, more than 70 hymns and anthems, over 80 songs and parlour ballads, and a body of part songs, carols, and piano and chamber pieces. The operatic output spanned his whole career, as did that of his songs and religious music. The solo piano and chamber pieces are mostly from his early years, and are generally in
11200-584: Was a military bandmaster, clarinettist and music teacher, born in Ireland and raised in Chelsea , London; his mother was English born, of Irish and Italian descent. Thomas Sullivan was based from 1845 to 1857 at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst , where he was the bandmaster and taught music privately to supplement his income. Young Arthur became proficient with many of the instruments in
11312-550: Was completed. The score was finished by Edward German , and produced in 1901. Sullivan's health was never robust – from his thirties his kidney disease often obliged him to conduct sitting down. He died of heart failure, following an attack of bronchitis, at his flat in Westminster on 22 November 1900. His Te Deum Laudamus , written in expectation of victory in the Boer War, was performed posthumously. A monument in
11424-428: Was correct. He was not effective in the post, and resigned in 1881. Sullivan's next collaboration with Gilbert, The Sorcerer (1877), ran for 178 performances, a success by the standards of the day, but H.M.S. Pinafore (1878), which followed it, turned Gilbert and Sullivan into an international phenomenon. Sullivan composed the bright and cheerful music of Pinafore while suffering from excruciating pain from
11536-549: Was first performed at the Leeds Festival in October 1880. Gilbert adapted the libretto for Sullivan, who, in gratitude, presented his collaborator with an engraved silver cup inscribed "W.S. Gilbert from his friend Arthur Sullivan." Sullivan was not a showy conductor, and some thought him dull and old-fashioned on the podium, but Martyr had an enthusiastic reception and was frequently revived. Other critics and performers had favorable reactions to Sullivan's conducting, and he had
11648-540: Was first presented the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik identified Schumann as a stronger influence, and Benedict Taylor, writing in 2017, concurs. In a 2009 study Taylor adds Schubert as another major influence on Sullivan in his orchestral works, although "from the beginning ... there is the peculiar, intangible stamp of Sullivan emerging confidently". Meinhard Saremba notes that from Sullivan's first meeting with Rossini in Paris, in 1862, Rossini's output became
11760-436: Was followed by The Pirates of Penzance in 1879, which opened in New York and then ran in London for 363 performances. In 1880 Sullivan was appointed director of the triennial Leeds Music Festival . He had earlier been commissioned to write a sacred choral work for the festival and chose, as its subject, Henry Hart Milman 's 1822 dramatic poem based on the life and death of St Margaret of Antioch . The Martyr of Antioch
11872-433: Was founded by John Fane, 11th Earl of Westmorland , in 1822 with the help and ideas of the French harpist and composer Nicolas Bochsa . The academy was granted a royal charter by King George IV in 1830. The founding of the academy was greatly supported by Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington . He was a keen violinist himself and was determined to make the academy a success. The academy faced closure in 1866; this
11984-547: Was later produced at the Gallery of Illustration , where it ran for an extraordinary 264 performances. W. S. Gilbert , writing in Fun magazine, pronounced the score superior to F. C. Burnand 's libretto. Sullivan and Burnand were soon commissioned by Thomas German Reed for a two-act opera, The Contrabandista (1867; revised and expanded as The Chieftain in 1894), but it did not do as well. Among Sullivan's early part songs
12096-409: Was never a more affectionate tie than that which existed between [Sullivan] and his mother, a very witty old lady, and one who took an exceptional pride in her son's accomplishments." Sullivan was also very fond of his brother Fred, whose acting career he assisted whenever possible, and of Fred's children. After Fred died at the age of 39, leaving his pregnant wife, Charlotte, with seven children under
12208-724: Was part of the reason for the founding of the Royal College of Music in South Kensington . The academy's history took a turn for the better when its recently appointed Principal (and former pupil) William Sterndale Bennett took on the chairmanship of the academy's board of directors and established its finances and reputation on a new footing. The academy's first building was in Tenterden Street, Hanover Square . Arnold Bax recalled it as an architectural rabbit warren. "The three eighteenth-century houses which
12320-401: Was received with acclaim on its first performance in London. Among his early major works were a ballet, L'Île Enchantée (1864), a symphony , a cello concerto (both 1866), and his Overture di Ballo (1870). To supplement the income from his concert works he wrote hymns, parlour ballads and other light pieces, and worked as a church organist and music teacher. In 1866 Sullivan composed
12432-733: Was too old to give much service as a treble before his voice broke, he was accepted and soon became a soloist. By 1856, he was promoted to "first boy". Even at this age, his health was delicate, and he was easily fatigued. Sullivan flourished under the training of the Reverend Thomas Helmore , Master of the Children of the Chapel Royal , and began to write anthems and songs. Helmore encouraged his compositional talent and arranged for one of his pieces, "O Israel", to be published in 1855, his first published work. Helmore enlisted Sullivan's assistance in creating harmonisations for
12544-453: Was with the American socialite Fanny Ronalds , a woman three years his senior, who had two children. He met her in Paris around 1867, and the affair began in earnest soon after she moved to London in 1871. According to a contemporary description of Ronalds, "Her face was perfectly divine in its loveliness, her features small and exquisitely regular. Her hair was a dark shade of brown – châtain foncé [deep chestnut] – and very abundant ...
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