Arthur
Sullivan (1842-1900)
Sir
Arthur Sullivan is famous all over the world as the composer who joined with
the librettist W.S.Gilbert to create the Gilbert and Sullivan operas. Between
1871 and 1896 Sullivan and Gilbert wrote fourteen operas, of which the best
known internationally are The Mikado (1885) and The Gondoliers (1889). Many of
these works were first produced at the Savoy Theatre, London - hence they are also
called the Savoy Operas.
Sullivan
was born in London on 13 May 1842, the son of a military
musician. He displayed musical gifts at an early age, and in 1854 became a
chorister at the Chapel Royal. Awarded the first Mendelssohn Scholarship in
1856, he studied at the Royal Academy of Music and the Leipzig Conservatoire.
He returned to England from Germany in 1862, bringing with him a suite of music
to Shakespeare's The Tempest. The performance of the Tempest music at the
Crystal Palace, London, created a sensation but did nothing to provide the
young composer with an income. Faced with the need to earn a living, Sullivan
turned to the production of songs and hymns, which in the time of Queen
Victoria could be very profitable. He also accepted commissions from the
theatres for incidental music, and from the provincial music festivals for choral
and orchestral works. In this way - and quite apart from his collaboration with
Gilbert - he composed a considerable body of music. However his achievements in
other directions have been overshadowed by the success of the Savoy Operas and
by the hostility of English music critics. As a result some of his works have
scarcely been performed since his death, which took place in London on 22
November 1900.
THE
SAPPHIRE NECKLACE - Overture (1864)
One
of the warmest of Sullivan's admirers was the music critic Henry Chorley
(1808-1872). Almost as soon as the composer returned from his studies in
Leipzig in 1862 he and Chorley began to collaborate on an opera, apparently
with the intention that it should be performed at Covent Garden. The opera, The
Sapphire Necklace, was completed in four acts but never performed, perhaps
because Chorley was not a good librettist but more likely because the times
were then, as always, unpropltious for English opera. The opera was still in
existence in 1880 when Sullivan repurchased it frorn the publishers Metzler,
but it has subsequently disappeared. Two vocal numbers were published as
separate items, and the overture was published in a military band arrangement
by Charles Godfrey Jr. However no orchestral material for the overture is known
to survive. For the purposes of the present recording Godfrey's arrangement has
been orchestrated in Sullivan's style by Roderick Spencer. In making his
military band version Godfrey may possibly have condensed Sullivan's original
structure. Charles Dickens, an early friend of Sullivan, declared hirnself
'perfectly enchanted' with the minuet theme which opens the overture, even
going so far as to declare that it was in itself sufficient to make the opera
successful.
HENRY
VIII - Incidental Music (1877)
1)
March
2)
King Henry's Song
3)
Graceful Dance
4)
Water Music
In
1877 the Theatre Royal, Manchester, was under the management of Charles
Calvert, who in 1871 had commissioned Sullivan to write the Merchant of Venice
music for the Prince's Theatre. Wishing to revive Shakespeare's Henry VIII,
Calvert again asked Sullivan to provide incidental music. As he frequently did,
Sullivan delayed work until the last possible moment, even causing the date of
production to be postponed frorn 27th to 29th August 1877. The music, confined
to the fifth act, became extrernely popular, especially with brass and military
bands. The text of the song 'Youth will needs have dalliance' is not by
Shakespeare. It is found among the Royal manuscripts in the British Library,
associated with a musical setting by King Henry VIII himself. However the
traditional assumption that the King wrote both words and music of the song
cannot be proved. Percy M. Young has called Sullivan's setting 'as charming as
any insouciant and amorous song by Campion or Rosseter or Morley'.
MERCHANT
OF VENICE - Incidental Music (1871)
1)
Introduction
2)
Barcarolle (Serenade - 'Nel ciel seren')
3)
Introduction & Bourrée
4)
Grotesque Dance
5)
A la Valse
6)
Melodrama
7)
Finale
Sullivan's
sites of incidental music for Shakespeare's plays take rank among his most
attractive compositions. The Merchant of Venice suite was written for a
production (19 September 1871) at the Prince's Theatre, Manchester. All of the
music is concentrated on a single scene - a lavish masque during which Jessica
and Lorenzo make good their elopement. The following description was written by
Sullivan's friend George Grove (editor of Grove's Dictionary of Music) when the
suite was performed at the Crystal Palace on 28 October 1871.
'At
the commencement of the scene, when the music begins, the stage is empty and
night is approaching. The distant cry of the gondoliers echoing along the
canals, and the voices of the masquers as they approach nearer and nearer are
all depicted in the music. A lover serenades his mistress, the masquers
gradually throng the ground, and the revelry begins. The dances are first a bourrée,
the old-fashioned heavy measure:- next a grotesque dance for Pierrots and
Harlequins:- and thirdly a general dance in modern waltz rhythm. Night has
settled down on the scene when Jessica makes her escape; after this the fun
waxes furious, and midst the glare of torches, the glitter of coloured
lanterns, and the shouts and songs of the revellers, the curtain descends.'
RTE
Concert Orchestra (Dublin)
The
Radio Television Concert Orchestra, Radio Telefis Eireann, in Dublin is a body
of amazing versatility. Founded in 1948, the orchestra has played a major rô1e
in broadcast and televised music, in addition to frequent appearances in the
concert hall, winning critical acclaim equally for music as diverse as a Shostakovich
symphony or support for the Eurovision Song Contest. The RTE Concert Orchestra
gives about eighty concerts a year in the Dublin National Concert Hall and
throughout Ireland and has undertaken a number of successful foreign tours,
including a series of 63 concerts in a 75-day tour of the United States and
appearance at the Seville EXPO '92.
Andrew
Penny
Andrew
Penny was born in the East coast English city of Hull and initially studied
clarinet at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, where he also
worked as a conductor with the Opera Unit. The newly established Rothschild
Scholarship in Conducting led to study with Sir Charles Groves and Timothy Reynish
and work as assistant conductor with Sir Charles Groves, Richard Hickox and Eigar
Howarth. Winner of the prestigious Ricordi Conducting Prize, he achieved his
first major success when he conducted the Vaughan Williams opera Riders to the
Sea at Sadler's Wells Theatre in London. In 1982 he became conductor of the
Hull Philharmonic Orchestra and has appeared with many orchestras, including
the BBC Philharmonic and the Ulster Orchestra.