Editing Arthur Sullivan (section)

==Music==
{{See also|List of compositions by Arthur Sullivan}}
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.<ref name=grove/><ref>Young, ''passim''</ref> 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 a Mendelssohnian style.<ref>Jacobs, p. 42</ref> 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.<ref>Young, pp, 271–272</ref>

===Influences===
Reviewers and scholars often cite Mendelssohn as the most important influence on Sullivan.<ref name=y22/> The music for ''The Tempest'' and the ''Irish Symphony'', among other works, was seen by contemporary writers as strikingly Mendelssohnian.<ref>Taylor, Chapter 1, 3rd and 4th page</ref> Percy Young writes that Sullivan's early affection for Mendelssohn remained evident throughout his composing career.<ref name=y22>Young, p. 22</ref> 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".<ref>Hughes, p. 69</ref> When ''The Tempest'' music was first presented the ''[[Neue Zeitschrift für Musik]]'' identified [[Robert Schumann|Schumann]] as a stronger influence, and Benedict Taylor, writing in 2017, concurs.<ref>Taylor, p. 10</ref> 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".<ref>Eden and Saremba, p. 38</ref> Meinhard Saremba notes that from Sullivan's first meeting with [[Gioachino Rossini|Rossini]] in Paris, in 1862, Rossini's output became a model for Sullivan's comic opera music, "as evidenced in several rhythmic patterns and constructions of long finales".<ref>Eden and Saremba, p. 57</ref>

[[File:arthur sullivan by ape.jpg|thumb|upright|Sullivan by the cartoonist [[Carlo Pellegrini (caricaturist)|"Ape"]], 1874|alt=Colour cartoon of Sullivan standing, in concert dress, wearing a monocle, ready to conduct]]
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 the time of ''The Golden Legend'' Sullivan had abandoned a [[Tonic (music)|home]] key altogether for the prelude.<ref>Eden and Saremba, pp. 76–77</ref> 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".<ref>Eden and Saremba, p. 57; and Klein, p. 196</ref> 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'' – 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''".<ref>Eden and Saremba, p. 60</ref>

===Method of composition and text setting===
Sullivan told an interviewer, Arthur Lawrence, "I don't use the piano in composition – that would limit me terribly". Sullivan explained that his process was not to wait for inspiration, but "to dig for it.&nbsp;... I decide on [the rhythm] before I come to the question of melody.&nbsp;... I mark out the metre in dots and dashes, and not until I have quite settled on the rhythm do I proceed to actual notation."<ref name=Lawrence2>Lawrence, Arthur H. [http://www.gsarchive.net/sullivan/interviews/lawrence.html "An Illustrated interview with Sir Arthur Sullivan, Part I"], ''The Strand Magazine'', vol. xiv, No. 84, December 1897</ref> Sullivan's text setting, compared with that of his 19th century English predecessors or his European contemporaries, was "vastly more sensitive.&nbsp;... Sullivan's operatic style attempts to create for itself a uniquely English text-music synthesis", and, in addition, by adopting a conservative musical style, he was able to achieve "the clarity to match Gilbert's finely honed wit with musical wit of his own".<ref>Fink, Robert. [http://www.sullivan-forschung.de/html/f1-analysen.html "Rhythm and Text Setting in ''The Mikado''"], ''19th Century Music'', vol. XIV No. 1, Summer 1990</ref>

In composing the Savoy operas, Sullivan wrote the vocal lines of the musical numbers first, and these were given to the actors. He, or an assistant, improvised a piano accompaniment at the early rehearsals; he wrote the orchestrations later, after he had seen what Gilbert's stage business would be.<ref name=Lawrence2/><ref>Ainger, p. 138</ref> He left the overtures until last and sometimes delegated their composition, based on his outlines, to his assistants,<ref>[http://gsarchive.net/sullivan/interviews/gazette.html "Sir Arthur Sullivan"], interviewed by ''The Pall Mall Gazette'', 5 December 1889, reprinted at the Gilbert and Sullivan Archive, accessed 6 October 2011</ref> often adding his suggestions or corrections.<ref name=Hughes130>Hughes, p. 130</ref> Those Sullivan wrote himself include ''Thespis'',<ref>Rees, p. 79</ref> ''Iolanthe'', ''Princess Ida'', ''The Yeomen of the Guard'', ''The Gondoliers'', ''The Grand Duke'' and probably ''Utopia, Limited''.<ref>Hughes, pp. 130–141</ref> Most of the overtures are structured as a [[potpourri (music)|pot-pourri]] of tunes from the operas in three sections: fast, slow and fast.<ref name=Hughes130/> Those for ''Iolanthe'' and ''The Yeomen of the Guard'' are written in a modified [[sonata form]].<ref>Williams, p. 298</ref>

===Melody and rhythm===
''The Musical Times'' noted that Sullivan's tunes, at least in the comic operas, appeal to the professional as much as to the layman: his continental contemporaries such as [[Saint-Saëns]] and the Viennese critic [[Eduard Hanslick]] held the Savoy operas in high regard.<ref>Jacobs, p. 244; and Harding, p. 119</ref> Hughes writes, "When Sullivan wrote what we call 'a good tune' it was nearly always 'good music' as well. Outside the ranks of the giants there are few other composers of whom the same could be said."<ref name=Hughes129/> Although his melodies sprang from rhythm,<ref name=Lawrence2/> some of his themes may have been prompted by his chosen instrumentation or his harmonic techniques.<ref name=Hughes129>Hughes, p. 129</ref>

[[File:If-you-go-in-verse-refrain.tif|thumb|upright=2.75|Climaxes of verse and refrain of "If You Go In" (''[[Iolanthe]]'')|alt=Excerpt of music – part of Tolloller's line]]
In the comic operas, where many numbers are in verse-plus-refrain form, Sullivan shaped his melodies to provide a climax for the verse, capped by an overall climax in the refrain.<ref name=h128/> Hughes cites "If you go in" (''Iolanthe'') as an example. He adds that Sullivan rarely reached the same class of excellence in instrumental works, where he had no librettist to feed his imagination.<ref name=h128>Hughes, p. 128</ref> Even with Gilbert, on those occasions when the librettist wrote in unvaried metre, Sullivan often followed suit and produced phrases of simple repetition, such as in "Love Is a Plaintive Song" (''Patience'') and "A Man Who Would Woo a Fair Maid" (''The Yeomen of the Guard'').<ref>Hughes, p. 125</ref>

Sullivan preferred to write in [[major key]]s, overwhelmingly in the Savoy operas, and even in his serious works.<ref name=Hughes52>Hughes, p. 52</ref> Examples of his rare excursions into minor keys include the long E minor melody in the first movement of the ''Irish Symphony'', "Go Away, Madam" in the Act I finale of ''Iolanthe'' (echoing [[Verdi]] and [[Beethoven]]) and the execution march in the Act I finale of ''The Yeomen of the Guard''.<ref name=Hughes52/>

===Harmony and counterpoint===
Sullivan was trained in the classical style, and contemporary music did not greatly attract him.<ref name=Hughes44>Hughes, p. 44</ref> Harmonically his early works used the conventional formulae of early-nineteenth-century composers including Mendelssohn, [[Daniel Auber|Auber]], [[Gaetano Donizetti|Donizetti]], [[Michael William Balfe|Balfe]] and Schubert.<ref>Hughes, pp. 44 and 49</ref> Hughes comments that harmonic contrast in the Savoy works is enhanced by Sullivan's characteristic modulation between keys, as in "Expressive Glances" (''Princess Ida''), where he negotiates smoothly E major, C sharp minor and C major, or "Then One of Us will Be a Queen" (''The Gondoliers''), where he writes in F major, D flat major and D minor.<ref>Hughes, p. 59</ref>

When reproached for using [[consecutive fifths]] in ''Cox and Box'', Sullivan replied "if 5ths turn up it doesn't matter, so long as there is no offence to the ear."<ref name=musicaltimes/> Both Hughes<ref>Hughes, p. 48</ref> and Jacobs in ''[[Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians|Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians]]''<ref name=grove/> comment adversely on Sullivan's overuse of [[Pedal point|tonic pedals]], usually in the bass, which Hughes attributes to "lack of enterprise or even downright laziness". Another Sullivan trademark criticised by Hughes is the repeated use of the chord of the [[augmented fourth]] at moments of pathos.<ref>Hughes, pp. 47–48</ref> In his serious works, Sullivan attempted to avoid harmonic devices associated with the Savoy operas, with the result, according to Hughes, that ''The Golden Legend'' is a "hotch-potch of harmonic styles".<ref>Hughes, p. 66</ref>

[[file:Mikado-trio.tif|thumb|upright=2.75|Characteristic "counterpoint of characters" from ''The Mikado'', Act 1|alt=Excerpt of music – part of "I Am So Proud"]]
One of Sullivan's best-known devices is what Jacobs terms his "'counterpoint of characters': the presentation by different personages of two seemingly independent tunes which later come together" simultaneously. He was not the first composer to combine themes in this way,{{refn|An earlier exponent of the device was [[Hector Berlioz]], who called it the ''réunion de deux thèmes''. The article on Berlioz in ''Grove'' cites examples including the finale of the ''[[Symphonie fantastique]]'', where the "witches' sabbath" theme is combined with the [[Dies irae]].<ref>[[Hugh Macdonald (musicologist)|Macdonald, Hugh]]. [https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.51424 "Berlioz, (Louis-)Hector"], ''Grove Music Online'', Oxford University Press, 2001 accessed 11 October 2018 {{subscription}}</ref>|group= n}} but in Jacobs's phrase it became almost "the trademark of Sullivan's operetta style".<ref name=grove/><ref name=h78>Hughes, p. 78</ref> Sometimes the melodies were for solo voices, as in "I Am So Proud" (''The Mikado''), which combines three melodic lines.<ref>Hughes, pp. 79 and 81–82</ref> Other examples are in choruses, where typically a graceful tune for the women is combined with a robust one for the men. Examples include "When the Foeman Bares his Steel" (''The Pirates of Penzance''), "In a Doleful Train" (''Patience'') and "Welcome, Gentry" (''Ruddigore'').<ref>Hughes, pp. 79–80</ref> In "How Beautifully Blue the Sky" (''The Pirates of Penzance''), one theme is given to the chorus (in 2/4 time) and the other to solo voices (in 3/4).<ref>Rees, p. 80</ref>

Sullivan rarely composed [[fugue]]s. Examples are from the "Epilogue" to ''The Golden Legend'' and ''Victoria and Merrie England''.<ref>Hughes, pp. 73–74</ref> In the Savoy operas, fugal style is reserved for making fun of legal solemnity in ''Trial by Jury'' and ''Iolanthe'' (e.g., the Lord Chancellor's [[leitmotif]] in the latter).<ref name=h75/> Less formal counterpoint is employed in numbers such as "Brightly Dawns Our Wedding Day" (''The Mikado'') and "When the Buds Are Blossoming" (''Ruddigore'').<ref name=h75>Hughes, p. 75</ref>

===Orchestration===
Hughes concludes his chapter on Sullivan's orchestration: "[I]n this vitally important sector of the composer's art he deserves to rank as a master."<ref>Hughes, p. 118</ref> Sullivan was a competent player of at least four orchestral instruments (flute, clarinet, trumpet and trombone) and technically a most skilful orchestrator.{{refn|Sullivan could also play the oboe and bassoon, but less proficiently.<ref name=young4/>|group= n}} Though sometimes inclined to indulge in grandiosity when writing for a full symphony orchestra, he was adept in using smaller forces to the maximum effect.<ref>Hughes, pp. 96–97</ref> Young writes that orchestral players generally like playing Sullivan's music: "Sullivan never asked his players to do what was either uncongenial or impracticable."<ref>Young, p. 178</ref><ref>Hughes, p. 96</ref>

{{listen|type=music
|filename=Overture di ballo.ogg
|title=''Overture di Ballo''
|description=The ''[[Overture di Ballo]]'' (1870) is regarded as Sullivan's most successful orchestral work.<ref name=Hughes14>Hughes, p. 14</ref> This [[military band]] arrangement is performed by the [[United States Marine Band|U.S. Marine Band]].
}}
Sullivan's orchestra for the Savoy operas was typical of the theatre orchestra of his era: 2 flutes (+ [[piccolo]]), oboe, 2 clarinets, [[bassoon]], 2 [[French horn|horns]], 2 [[cornet]]s, 2 trombones, [[timpani]], percussion and strings. According to [[Geoffrey Toye]], the number of players in Sullivan's Savoy Theatre orchestras was a "minimum" of 31.<ref>Seeley, Paul. "Authentic Sullivan", ''[[Opera (British magazine)|Opera]]'', November 2016, p. 1372; and "The Savoy Opera Revival", ''The Observer'', 28 September 1919</ref> Sullivan argued hard for an increase in the pit orchestra's size, and, starting with ''The Yeomen of the Guard'', the orchestra was augmented with a second bassoon and a second tenor trombone.<ref>Hughes, p. 108</ref> He generally orchestrated each score at almost the last moment, noting that the accompaniment for an opera had to wait until he saw the staging, so that he could judge how heavily or lightly to orchestrate each part of the music.<ref>Findon, p. 107</ref> For his large-scale orchestral pieces, which often employed very large forces, Sullivan added a second oboe part, sometimes [[double bassoon]] and [[bass clarinet]], more horns, trumpets, tuba, and occasionally an organ and/or a harp.<ref>Eden and Saremba, Appendix: The orchestration of Sullivan's major works</ref>

One of the most recognisable features in Sullivan's orchestration is his woodwind scoring. Hughes especially notes Sullivan's clarinet writing, exploiting all registers and colours of the instrument, and his particular fondness for oboe solos. For instance, the ''Irish Symphony'' contains two long solo oboe passages in succession, and in the Savoy operas there are many shorter examples.<ref>Hughes, p. 104</ref> In the operas, and also in concert works, another characteristic Sullivan touch is his fondness for [[pizzicato]] passages for the string sections. Hughes instances "Kind Sir, You Cannot Have the Heart" (''The Gondoliers''), "Free From his Fetters Grim" (''The Yeomen of the Guard'') and "In Vain to Us You Plead" (''Iolanthe'').<ref>Hughes, p. 117</ref>

===Musical quotations and parodies===
[[File:H.J. Whitlock - Photograph of Arthur Sullivan.jpg|left|thumb|upright|Sullivan in about 1870|alt=Head and shoulders of Sullivan as a young man, wearing a moustache, long sideburns and a serious expression]]
Throughout the Savoy operas, and occasionally in other works, Sullivan quotes or imitates well-known themes or parodies the styles of famous composers.<ref>Cooper, Martin. "Sullivan", ''Opera News'', April 1960, pp. 8–12</ref> On occasion he may have echoed his predecessors unconsciously: Hughes cites a [[George Frederick Handel|Handelian]] influence in "Hereupon We're Both Agreed" (''The Yeomen of the Guard''), and [[Rodney Milnes]] called "Sighing Softly" in ''The Pirates of Penzance'' "a song plainly inspired by – and indeed worthy of – Sullivan's hero, Schubert".<ref name="Hughes, p. 152">Hughes, p. 152</ref><ref>Milnes, Rodney. "Putting the Jolly in Roger", ''The Times'', 26 April 2001, Section 2, p. 20</ref> [[Edward Greenfield]] found a theme in the slow movement of the ''Irish Symphony'' "an outrageous crib" from Schubert's [[Symphony No. 8 (Schubert)|''Unfinished'' Symphony]].<ref>Greenfield, Edward. "Sullivan – Symphony in E major", ''The Gramophone'', February 1969, p. 61</ref> In early pieces, Sullivan drew on Mendelssohn's style in his music for ''The Tempest'', Auber's in his ''Henry VIII'' music and [[Charles Gounod|Gounod]]'s in ''The Light of the World''.<ref>De Ternant, Andrew. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/911932 "Debussy and Others on Sullivan"], ''The Musical Times'', 1 December 1924, pp. 1089–1090 {{subscription}}</ref> The influence of Mendelssohn pervades the fairy music in ''Iolanthe''.<ref>Hughes, pp. 46–47 and 152</ref> ''The Golden Legend'' shows the influence of [[Franz Liszt|Liszt]] and Wagner.<ref>Young, p. 221; and Burton, Nigel. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/964387 "100 Years of a Legend"], ''The Musical Times'', 1 October 1986 pp. 554–557 {{subscription}}</ref>

Sullivan adopted traditional musical forms, such as [[Madrigal (music)|madrigals]] in ''The Mikado'', ''Ruddigore'' and ''The Yeomen of the Guard'' and [[glee (music)|glees]] in ''H.M.S. Pinafore'' and ''The Mikado'', and the Venetian [[barcarolle]] in ''The Gondoliers''. He made use of dance styles to enhance the sense of time or place in various scenes: [[gavotte]]s in ''Ruddigore'' and ''The Gondoliers'';<ref name=h144>Hughes, pp. 144–145</ref> a country dance in ''The Sorcerer''; a nautical hornpipe in ''Ruddigore''; and the Spanish [[cachucha]] and Italian [[saltarello]] and [[tarantella]] in ''The Gondoliers''.<ref name=h144/> Occasionally he drew on influences from further afield. In ''The Mikado'', he used an old Japanese war song, and his 1882 trip to Egypt inspired musical styles in his later opera ''The Rose of Persia''.<ref>"The Rose of Persia; Or, the Story-teller and the Slave", ''The Era'', 2 December 1899, p. 14</ref>

Elsewhere, Sullivan wrote undisguised parody. Of the sextet "I Hear the Soft Note" in ''Patience'', he said to the singers, "I think you will like this. It is [[Thomas Arne|Dr Arne]] and [[Henry Purcell|Purcell]] at their best."<ref name=GGReminiscence/> In his comic operas, he followed [[Jacques Offenbach|Offenbach]]'s lead in lampooning the idioms of French and Italian opera, such as those of [[Gaetano Donizetti|Donizetti]], [[Vincenzo Bellini|Bellini]] and Verdi.<ref>Hughes, pp. 150–151; and Jacobs, p. 52</ref> Examples of his operatic parody include Mabel's aria "Poor Wand'ring One" in ''The Pirates of Penzance'', the duet "Who Are You, Sir?" from ''Cox and Box'',<ref>Hughes, pp. 151 and 80</ref> and the whispered plans for elopement in "This Very Night" in ''H.M.S. Pinafore'', parodying the conspirators' choruses in Verdi's ''[[Il trovatore]]'' and ''[[Rigoletto]]''.<ref name=Scherer>Scherer, Barrymore Laurence. [https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304186404576390112252351044 "Gilbert & Sullivan, Parody's Patresfamilias"], ''The Wall Street Journal'', 23 June 2011, accessed 19 December 2017 {{subscription}}</ref> The mock-jingoistic "He Is an Englishman" in ''H.M.S. Pinafore'' and choral passages in ''The Zoo'' satirise patriotic British tunes such as Arne's "[[Rule, Britannia!]]".<ref name=Scherer/> The chorus "With Catlike Tread" from ''The Pirates'' parodies Verdi's "[[Anvil Chorus]]" from ''Il trovatore''.<ref>Hughes, pp. 150–151</ref>

Hughes calls Bouncer's song in ''Cox and Box'' "a jolly Handelian parody" and notes a strong Handelian flavour to Arac's song in Act III of ''Princess Ida''.<ref name="Hughes, p. 152"/> In "A More Humane Mikado", at the words "Bach interwoven with [[Louis Spohr|Spohr]] and [[Ludwig van Beethoven|Beethoven]]", the clarinet and bassoon quote the fugue subject of Bach's [[Great Fantasia and Fugue in G minor, BWV 542|Fantasia and Fugue in G minor]].<ref>Hughes, p. 109</ref> Sullivan sometimes used Wagnerian [[leitmotif]]s for both comic and dramatic effect. In ''Iolanthe'', a distinctive four-note theme is associated with the title character, the Lord Chancellor has a fugal motif, and the Fairy Queen's music parodies that of Wagner heroines such as [[Brünnhilde]].<ref>Williams, p. 217</ref> In ''The Yeomen of the Guard'' the [[Tower of London]] is evoked by its own motif.<ref name=h143>Hughes, p. 143</ref> This use of the leitmotif technique is repeated and developed further in ''Ivanhoe''.<ref>Young, p. 223</ref>