Editing Arthur Sullivan (section)

==Reputation and criticism==
{{Main|Critical reputation of Arthur Sullivan}}

===Early reception===
Sullivan's critical reputation has undergone extreme changes since the 1860s when critics, struck by his potential, hailed him as the long-awaited great English composer.<ref>Jacobs, pp. 28 and 42</ref> His incidental music to ''The Tempest'' was received with acclaim at the Crystal Palace, just before his 20th birthday, in April 1862. ''[[The Athenaeum (British magazine)|The Athenaeum]]'' commented:
{{quote|It&nbsp;... may mark an epoch in English music, or we shall be greatly disappointed. Years on years have elapsed since we have heard a work by so young an artist so full of promise, so full of fancy, showing so much conscientiousness, so much skill, and so few references to any model elect.<ref>Quoted in Jacobs, p. 28</ref>|}}

[[File:Punch - Sullivan's knighthood.png|thumb|right|Cartoon from ''[[Punch (magazine)|Punch]]'' (1880){{refn|The cartoon was accompanied by a parody of "When I, good friends" from ''[[Trial by Jury]]'' that summarised Sullivan's career to that date. It prematurely carried a caption stating "It is reported that after the Leeds Festival Dr. Sullivan will be knighted" and was accompanied by a punny parody version of "When I, good friends" from ''[[Trial by Jury]]'' that summarised Sullivan's career to that date.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=9RtcAAAAQAAJ&pg=RA1-PA202 "A Humorous Knight"], ''Punch'', 30 October 1880, p. 202</ref>|group= n}}|alt=Mocking newspaper cartoon showing Sullivan wearing a "pinafore" apron, standing ''en pointe'' in a violin case while conducting, surrounded by corrupted paraphernalia relating to his early comic operas, over the sardonic song title "When Arthur First at Court Began"]]
His ''Irish Symphony'' of 1866 won similarly enthusiastic praise, but as Arthur Jacobs notes, "The first rapturous outburst of enthusiasm for Sullivan as an orchestral composer did not last."<ref>Jacobs, p. 48</ref> A comment typical of those that followed him throughout his career was that "Sullivan's unquestionable talent should make him doubly careful not to mistake popular applause for artistic appreciation."<ref>Jacobs, p. 49</ref>

When Sullivan turned to comic opera with Gilbert, the serious critics began to express disapproval. The music critic [[Peter Gammond]] writes of "misapprehensions and prejudices, delivered to our door by the Victorian firm Musical Snobs Ltd.&nbsp;... frivolity and high spirits were sincerely seen as elements that could not be exhibited by anyone who was to be admitted to the sanctified society of Art."<ref>Gammond, p. 137</ref> As early as 1877 ''[[London Figaro|The London Figaro]]'' commented that Sullivan "wilfully throws his opportunity away.&nbsp;... He possesses all the natural ability to have given us an English opera, and, instead, he affords us a little more-or-less excellent fooling."<ref>''The London Figaro'', quoted in Allen, pp. 49–50</ref> Few critics denied the excellence of Sullivan's theatre scores. ''[[The Theatre (magazine)|The Theatre]]'' commented, "''Iolanthe'' sustains Dr. Sullivan's reputation as the most spontaneous, fertile, and scholarly composer of comic opera this country has ever produced."<ref>Beatty-Kingston, William. ''The Theatre'', 1 January 1883, p. 28</ref>{{refn|Sullivan received honorary  doctorates of music from the [[University of Cambridge]] in 1876,<ref>"University Intelligence", ''The Times'', 18 May 1876, p. 6</ref> and Oxford in 1879.<ref>"University Intelligence", ''The Times'', 11 June 1879, p. 10</ref>|group= n}}  Comic opera, no matter how skilfully crafted, was viewed as an intrinsically lower form of art than oratorio. ''The Athenaeum's'' review of ''The Martyr of Antioch'' declared: "[I]t is an advantage to have the composer of ''H.M.S. Pinafore'' occupying himself with a worthier form of art."<ref>25 October 1880, quoted in Jacobs, p. 149</ref>

===Knighthood and later years===
Sullivan's knighthood in 1883 gave the serious music critics further ammunition. ''The Musical Review'' of that year observed:
{{quote|[S]ome things that Mr. Arthur Sullivan may do, Sir Arthur ought not to do. In other words, it will look rather more than odd to see announced in the papers that a new comic opera is in preparation, the book by Mr. W. S. Gilbert and the music by Sir Arthur Sullivan. A musical knight can hardly write shop ballads either; he must not dare to soil his hands with anything less than an anthem or a madrigal; oratorio, in which he has so conspicuously shone, and symphony, must now be his line. Here is not only an opportunity, but a positive obligation for him to return to the sphere from which he has too long descended [and] do battle for the honour of English art&nbsp;... against all foreign rivals, and arouse us thoroughly from our present half-torpid condition.<ref name=MW/>|}}

Even Sullivan's friend George Grove wrote: "Surely the time has come when so able and experienced a master of voice, orchestra, and stage effect – master, too, of so much genuine sentiment – may apply his gifts to a serious opera on some subject of abiding human or natural interest."<ref>Grove, George. "Sullivan, Arthur Seymour" ''Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', London 1879–89, p. 762, quoted in Sarema, Meinhard. [http://www.sullivan-forschung.de/meinhard/berlinas "In the Purgatory of Tradition: Arthur Sullivan and the English Musical Renaissance"], Deutsche Sullivan Gesellschaft, 2000, accessed 10 December 2017</ref> Sullivan finally redeemed himself in critical eyes with ''The Golden Legend'' in 1886.<ref>Stanford, pp. 161–163</ref> ''[[The Observer]]'' hailed it as a "triumph of English art".<ref>"Leeds Music Festival", ''The Observer'', 17 October 1886, p. 6</ref> ''[[The World (journal)|The World]]'' called it "one of the greatest creations we have had for many years. Original, bold, inspired, grand in conception, in execution, in treatment, it is a composition which will make an 'epoch' and which will carry the name of its composer higher on the wings of fame and glory.&nbsp;... The effect of the public performance was unprecedented."<ref>Quoted in Harris, p. IV</ref>

Hopes for a new departure were expressed in ''The Daily Telegraph's'' review of ''The Yeomen of the Guard'' (1888), Sullivan's most serious opera to that point: "[T]he music follows the book to a higher plane, and we have a genuine English opera, forerunner of many others, let us hope, and possibly significant of an advance towards a national lyric stage."<ref>Quoted in Allen, p. 312</ref> Sullivan's only grand opera, ''Ivanhoe'' (1891), received generally favourable reviews,<ref>Dailey, pp. 129–133</ref> although [[John Alexander Fuller Maitland|J. A. Fuller Maitland]], in ''The Times'', expressed reservations, writing that the opera's "best portions rise so far above anything else that Sir Arthur Sullivan has given to the world, and have such force and dignity, that it is not difficult to forget the drawbacks which may be found in the want of interest in much of the choral writing, and the brevity of the concerted solo parts."<ref>Quoted in Jacobs, p. 331</ref> Sullivan's 1897 ballet ''[[Victoria and Merrie England]]'' was one of several late pieces that won praise from most critics:<ref>"Sir Arthur Sullivan's New Ballet", ''The Daily News'', 26 May 1897, p. 8; "Alhambra Theatre", ''The Morning Post'', 26 May 1897, p. 7; "Sir Arthur Sullivan's New Ballet 'Victoria'", ''The Manchester Guardian'', 26 May 1897, p. 7; "Music", ''The Illustrated London News'', 29 May 1897, p. 730; and "Victoria And Merrie England", ''The Era'', 29 May 1897, p. 8</ref>    
{{quote|Sir Arthur Sullivan's music is music for the people. There is no attempt made to force on the public the dullness of academic experience. The melodies are all as fresh as last year's wine, and as exhilarating as sparkling champagne. There is not one tune which tires the hearing, and in the matter of orchestration our only humorist has let himself run riot, not being handicapped with libretto, and the gain is enormous.&nbsp;... All through we have orchestration of infinite delicacy, tunes of alarming simplicity, but never a tinge of vulgarity.<ref>Quoted in Tillett, p. 26</ref>|}}

Although the more solemn members of the musical establishment could not forgive Sullivan for writing music that was both comic and accessible, he was, nevertheless, "the nation's ''de facto'' composer laureate".<ref>Maine, Basil. [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/odnb/9780192683120.001.0001/odnb-9780192683120-e-32988 "Elgar, Sir Edward William"], 1949, ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' archive, accessed 20 April 2010 {{ODNBsub}}</ref>{{refn|Gian Andrea Mazzucato wrote this summary of Sullivan's career in ''The Musical Standard'' of 16 December 1899: "[T]he English history of the 19th century could not record the name of a man whose 'life work' is more worthy of honour, study and admiration than the name of Sir Arthur Sullivan&nbsp;... it is a debatable point whether the universal history of music can point to any musical personality since the days of [[Haydn]], Mozart and Beethoven, whose influence is likely to be more lasting than the influence the great Englishman is slowly, but surely, exerting.&nbsp;... I make no doubt that when&nbsp;... Sullivan's life and works have become known on the continent, he will, by unanimous consent, be classed among the epoch-making composers, the select few whose genius and strength of will empowered them to find and found a national school of music, that is, to endow their countrymen with the undefinable, yet positive means of evoking in a man's soul, by the magic of sound, those delicate nuances of feeling which are characteristic of the emotional power of each different race."<ref>Quoted in the ''Sir Arthur Sullivan Society Journal'', No. 34, Spring 1992, pp. 11–12</ref>|group= n}} His obituary in ''The Times'' called him England's "most conspicuous composer ... the musician who had such power to charm all classes. ... The critic and the student found new beauties at every fresh hearing. What ... set Sullivan in popular esteem far above all the other English composers of his day was the tunefulness of his music, that quality in it by which ... [it] was immediately recognized as a joyous contribution to the gaiety of life. ... Sullivan's name stood as a synonym for music in England.{{refn|The obituary also stated: "Many who are able to appreciate classical music regret that Sir Arthur Sullivan did not aim consistently at higher things, that he set himself to rival Offenbach and Lecocq instead of competing on a level of high seriousness with such musicians as Sir Hubert Parry and Professor Stanford. If he had followed this path, he might have enrolled his name among the great composers of all time. ... That Sir Arthur Sullivan could aim high and succeed he proved by ''The Golden Legend'' and by a good deal of ''Ivanhoe''".<ref>Sullivan's Obituary in ''The Times'', 23 November 1900, pp. 7 and 9, [http://www.gsarchive.net/sullivan/html/obit.html reprinted] at the Gilbert and Sullivan Archive, accessed 12 December 2017</ref>|group= n}}

===Posthumous reputation===
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|description=A 1914 [[Edison Records]] recording of selections from ''[[The Mikado]]''. Includes parts of the overture, "A Wand'ring Minstrel", "Three Little Maids", "Tit-willow" and the Act II finale.
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In the decade after his death, Sullivan's reputation sank considerably among music critics. In 1901 Fuller Maitland took issue with the generally laudatory tone of the obituaries: "Is there anywhere a case quite parallel to that of Sir Arthur Sullivan, who began his career with a work which at once stamped him as a genius, and to the height of which he only rarely attained throughout life?&nbsp;...  It is because such great natural gifts – gifts greater, perhaps, than fell to any English musician since&nbsp;... Purcell – were so very seldom employed in work worthy of them."<ref>Fuller Maitland, J. A. "Obituary", ''Cornhill Magazine'', March 1901, pp. 300–309</ref> Edward Elgar, to whom Sullivan had been particularly kind,<ref>Young, p. 264</ref> rose to Sullivan's defence, branding Fuller Maitland's obituary "the shady side of musical criticism&nbsp;... that foul unforgettable episode".<ref>Quoted in Young, p. 264</ref>{{refn|Fuller Maitland was later discredited when it was shown that he had invented a banal lyric, passing it off as genuine and condemning Sullivan for supposedly setting such inanity.<ref name=burton/> In 1929 Fuller Maitland admitted that he had been wrong in earlier years to dismiss Sullivan's comic operas as "ephemeral".<ref>"Light Opera", ''The Times'', 22 September 1934, p. 10</ref>|group= n}}

[[File:D'oyly-carte-the-joy-of-three-generations-1921.jpg|thumb|left|20th-century audiences|alt=Drawing of a grandfather, father and boy, all dressed for the theatre, sitting in happy anticipation, over the caption "The Joy of Three Generations (To be seen any night at the Gilbert and Sullivan Operas)"]]
Fuller Maitland's followers, including [[Ernest Walker (composer)|Ernest Walker]], also dismissed Sullivan as "merely the idle singer of an empty evening".<ref name="Hughes, p. 6">Hughes, p. 6</ref> As late as 1966 [[Frank Howes]], a music critic for ''[[The Times]]'', condemned Sullivan for a "lack of sustained effort&nbsp;... a fundamental lack of seriousness towards his art [and] inability to perceive the smugness, the sentimentality and banality of the Mendelssohnian detritus&nbsp;... to remain content with the flattest and most obvious rhythms, this yielding to a fatal facility, that excludes Sullivan from the ranks of the good composers."<ref>Howes, p. 54</ref> [[Thomas Dunhill]] wrote in 1928 that Sullivan's "music has suffered in an extraordinary degree from the vigorous attacks which have been made upon it in professional circles. These attacks have succeeded in surrounding the composer with a kind of barricade of prejudice which must be swept away before justice can be done to his genius."<ref>Dunhill 1928, p. 13</ref>

[[Henry Wood|Sir Henry Wood]] continued to perform Sullivan's serious music.<ref>"Sir Henry Wood Jubilee Concert at Albert Hall", ''The Times'', 6 October 1938, p. 10</ref> In 1942 Wood presented a Sullivan centenary concert at the [[Royal Albert Hall]],<ref name=grove/> but it was not until the 1960s that Sullivan's music other than the Savoy operas began to be widely revived. In 1960 Hughes published the first full-length book about Sullivan's music "which, while taking note of his weaknesses (which are many) and not hesitating to castigate his lapses from good taste (which were comparatively rare) [attempted] to view them in perspective against the wider background of his sound musicianship."<ref name="Hughes, p. 6"/> The work of the Sir Arthur Sullivan Society, founded in 1977, and books about Sullivan by musicians such as Young (1971) and Jacobs (1986) contributed to the re-evaluation of Sullivan's serious music.<ref name=burton/> The ''Irish Symphony'' had its first professional recording in 1968, and many of Sullivan's non-Gilbert works have since been recorded.<ref name=Sulldiscog>Shepherd, Marc. [http://gasdisc.oakapplepress.com/sullidx.htm "Discography of Sir Arthur Sullivan"], the Gilbert and Sullivan Discography, 10 July 2010, accessed 5 October 2014</ref> Scholarly critical editions of an increasing number of Sullivan's works have been published.<ref name=grove/>

In 1957 a review in ''The Times'' explained Sullivan's contributions to "the continued vitality of the Savoy operas": "Gilbert's lyrics ... take on extra point and sparkle when set to Sullivan's music.&nbsp;... [Sullivan, too, is] a delicate wit, whose airs have a precision, a neatness, a grace, and a flowing melody".<ref>"The Lasting Charm of Gilbert and Sullivan: Operas of an Artificial World", ''The Times'', 14 February 1957, p. 5</ref> A 2000 article in ''The Musical Times'' by Nigel Burton noted the resurgence of Sullivan's reputation beyond the comic operas:
{{quote|[Sullivan] spoke naturally to all people, for all time, of the passions, sorrows and joys which are forever rooted in the human consciousness.&nbsp;... It is his artistic consistency in this respect which obliges us to pronounce him our greatest Victorian composer. Time has now sufficiently dispersed the mists of criticism for us to be able to see the truth, to enjoy all his music, and to rejoice in the rich diversity of its panoply.&nbsp;... [L]et us resolve to set aside the "One-and-a-half-hurrahs" syndrome once and for all, and, in its place, raise THREE LOUD CHEERS.<ref name=burton>Burton, Nigel. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/1004730 "Sullivan Reassessed: See How the Fates"], ''The Musical Times'', Winter 2000, pp. 15–22 {{subscription}}</ref>|}}
[[File:Mikado-1917.jpg|thumb|upright|Advertisement for the first recording of ''The Mikado'', 1917|alt=Poster advertising, in plain type, a recording of ''The Mikado'']]