Arthur Sullivan A Victorian Musician

This is a revised, enlarged edition of a book which on its original appearance in 1984 was hailed as a landmark in the study of Victorian musical life. It presents the figure of Sir Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900) not only as the celebrated co-creator of light operas with W.S. Gilbert, but as a composer of all sorts of music from symphony and concerto to ballads such as The Lost Chord and hymns such as Onward Christian Soldiers. A prominent public life, with a knighthood in 1883, is contrasted with an unconventional private life with a liaison of almost 30 years with an American living in London, Mary Frances Ronalds. The author had access to Sullivan's diary at Yale University and to letters and other documents at the Peirpont Morgan Library in New York. An additional chapter updates research to the 150th anniversary of the composer's birth, 1992, and incorporates music examples.

Arthur Sullivan (1842–1900) was Victorian Britain’s most celebrated and popular composer, whose music to this day reaches a wider audience than that of any of his contemporaries. Yet the comic operas on which Sullivan’s reputation is chiefly based have been consistently belittled or ignored by the British musicological establishment, while his serious works have until recently remained virtually unknown. The time is thus long overdue for scholarly re-engagement with Sullivan. The present book offers a new appraisal of the music of this most notable nineteenth-century British composer, combining close analytical attention to his music with critical consideration of the wider aesthetic and social context to his work. Focusing on key pieces in all the major genres in which Sullivan composed, it includes accounts of his most important serious works – the music to The Tempest, the ‘Irish’ Symphony, The Golden Legend, Ivanhoe – alongside detailed examination of the celebrated comic operas created with W.S. Gilbert to present a balanced portrayal of Sullivan’s musical achievement.

Published in 1992. This is a revised, enlarged edition of a book which on its original appearance in 1984 was hailed as a landmark in the study of Victorian musical life. It presents the figure of Sir Arthur Sullivan (1842-1990) not only as the celebrated co-creator of light operas with W.S Gilbert, but as a composer of all kinds of music from symphony and concerto to ballads such as ‘The Lost Chord’ and hymns such as ‘Onward, Christian Soldiers’. A prominent public life, with a knighthood in 1883, is contrasted with an unconventional private life involving a liaison of almost thirty years with an American living in London, Mary Frances Ronalds. The author’s access to Sullivan’s diary held by Yale University and to letters and other documents at the Pierpont Morgan library in New York gives this book both a unique authority and a deep human understanding. A new chapter updates research to the 150th anniversary of the composer’s birth, 1992, and incorporates music examples.

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