Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan (13 May 1842 – 22 November 1900) was an English composer. He is best known for 14 comic opera 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 , 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 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), 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 music and other light pieces, and worked as a church organist and music teacher.
In 1866 Sullivan composed 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 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 the 1880s included two , 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 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 .
While recognising the boy's obvious talent, his father knew the insecurity of a musical career and discouraged him from pursuing it.Young, p. 5 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.Jacobs, p. 7; and Ainger, p. 24 Despite concerns that, at nearly 12 years of age, Sullivan was too old to give much service as a Boy soprano before his voice broke, he was accepted and soon became a soloist. By 1856, he was promoted to "first boy".Jacobs, pp. 8 and 12 Even at this age, his health was delicate, and he was easily fatigued.Jacobs, pp. 12–13
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.Jacobs, pp. 10–11 Helmore encouraged his compositional talent and arranged for one of his pieces, "O Israel", to be published in 1855, his first published work.Young, p. 8 Helmore enlisted Sullivan's assistance in creating harmonisations for a volume of The Hymnal Noted "Arthur Sullivan", The Musical Times, 1 December 1900, pp. 785–787 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.
Sullivan's scholarship was extended to a second year, and in 1858, in what his biographer Arthur Jacobs calls an "extraordinary gesture of confidence",Jacobs, p. 17 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.Ainger, p. 37 He was trained in Mendelssohn's ideas and techniques but was also exposed to a variety of styles, including those of Franz Schubert, Giuseppe Verdi, Bach and Richard Wagner.Jacobs, p. 24 Visiting a synagogue, he was so struck by some of the 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.Jacobs, pp. 22–24
The academy renewed Sullivan's scholarship to allow him a second year of study at Leipzig.Young, p. 21 For his third and last year there, his father scraped together the money for living expenses, and the conservatoire assisted by waiving its fees.Jacobs, p. 23 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 a sensation.Jacobs, pp. 27–28 He began building a reputation as England's most promising young composer.
With The Masque at Kenilworth (Birmingham Festival, 1864), Sullivan began his association with works for voice and orchestra.Jacobs, p. 38 While an organist at the Royal Italian Opera, Covent Garden, he composed his first ballet, L'Île Enchantée (1864).Jacobs, p. 37 His Irish Symphony and Cello Concerto (both 1866) were his only works in their respective genres.Jacobs, pp. 36 and 42 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.Jacobs, p. 43 In June 1867 the Philharmonic Society gave the first performance of his overture Marmion.Jacobs, Arthur. "Sullivan, Sir Arthur", Grove Music Online, Oxford University Press, accessed 19 August 2011 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.""Concerts", The Times, 17 June 1867, p. 12 In October, Sullivan travelled with George Grove to Vienna in search of neglected scores by Schubert.Jacobs, p. 45; and Young, p. 56 They unearthed manuscript copies of symphonies and vocal music, and were particularly elated by their final discovery, 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.Jacobs, pp. 42–43 His first surviving opera, Cox and Box (1866), was written for a private performance.Ainger, p. 65 It then received charity performances in London and Manchester, and 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.Young, p. 63 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.Young, p. 63; and Rollins and Witts, p. 15 Among Sullivan's early is "The Long Day Closes" (1868).Sullivan, Marc. "Discography of Sir Arthur Sullivan: Recordings of Hymns and Songs", the Gilbert and Sullivan Discography, 11 July 2010, accessed 9 September 2011 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."Worcester Music Festival", The Times, 9 September 1869, p. 10
At 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.Ainger, p. 93 Played as a Christmas entertainment, it ran through to Easter 1872, a good run for such a piece.Rees, p. 78 Gilbert and Sullivan then went their separate waysStedman, p. 94 until they collaborated on three parlour ballads in late 1874 and early 1875.Stedman, pp. 126–127
Sullivan's large-scale works of the early 1870s were the Festival Te Deum (Crystal Palace, 1872)Jacobs, pp. 75–76 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 1874Jacobs, p. 76 and Henry VIII at the Theatre Royal, Manchester, in 1877.Jacobs, p. 108 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.Howarth, Paul. The Miller and His Man, the Gilbert and Sullivan Archive, accessed 28 July 2018
In 1875 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.Ainger, pp. 107–108 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.Ainger, p. 108 Trial, starring Sullivan's brother Fred Sullivan as the Learned Judge, became a surprise hit, earning glowing praise from the critics and playing for 300 performances over its first few seasons.Allen, p. 30 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. The Daily News, 27 March 1875, p. 3 One wrote, "it seems, as in the great Wagnerian operas, as though poem and music had proceeded simultaneously from one and the same brain." " Trial by Jury", The Musical World, 3 April 1875, p. 226, accessed 17 June 2008 A few months later, another Sullivan one-act comic opera opened: The Zoo, with a libretto by B. C. Stephenson.Jacobs, pp. 91–92 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.Rollins and Witts, pp. 5–12
Sullivan also turned out more than 80 popular songs and parlour ballads, most of them written before the end of the 1870s.Young, pp. 273–278, gives a complete list. For links and descriptions, see Howarth, Paul (ed.) "Sir Arthur Sullivan's Songs and Parlour Ballads", the Gilbert and Sullivan Archive, 18 July 2004, accessed 18 December 2017 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.Ainger, p. 128 The sheet music for his best-received songs sold in large numbers and was an important part of his income.Goodman, p. 19
In this decade, Sullivan's conducting appointments included the Glasgow Choral Union concerts (1875–77) and the Royal Aquarium, London (1876).Ainger, p. 121 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 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,Rollins and Witts, p. 5 a success by the standards of the day,Crowther (2000), p. 96 but H.M.S. Pinafore (1878), which followed it, turned Gilbert and Sullivan into an international phenomenon.Crowther (2000), p. 96; and Stedman, p. 169 Sullivan composed the bright and cheerful music of Pinafore while suffering from excruciating pain from a kidney stone.Ainger, p. 155 Pinafore ran for 571 performances in London, then the second-longest theatrical run in history,Gaye, p. 1532; and Gillan, Don. "Longest Running Plays in London and New York", StageBeauty.net (2007), accessed 10 March 2009 and more than 150 unauthorised productions were quickly mounted in America alone.Prestige, Colin. "D'Oyly Carte and the Pirates: The Original New York Productions of Gilbert and Sullivan", pp. 113–148 at p. 118, Gilbert and Sullivan Papers Presented at the International Conference held at the University of Kansas in May 1970, Edited by James Helyar. Lawrence, Kansas: University of Kansas Libraries, 1971. 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."Opera Comique", The Times, 27 May 1878, p. 6 The Times and several of the other papers agreed that although the piece was entertaining, Sullivan was capable of higher art, and frivolous light opera would hold him back.Allen, Introduction to chapter on H.M.S. Pinafore 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." "A Talk With Mr. Sullivan", The New York Times, 1 August 1879, p. 3, , accessed 22 May 2012 Pinafore was followed by The Pirates of Penzance in 1879, which opened in New York and then ran in London for 363 performances.Rollins and Witts, p. 7
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 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 "". Iolanthe (1882), the first new opera to open at the Savoy, was Gilbert and Sullivan's fourth hit in a row.Jacobs, p. 178 Sullivan, despite the financial security of writing for 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.Ainger, pp. 217–219 In February 1883, he and Gilbert signed a five-year agreement with Carte, requiring them to produce a new comic opera on six months' notice.Ainger, p. 219
On 22 May 1883 Sullivan was Knight bachelor by Queen Victoria for his "services ... rendered to the promotion of the art of music" in Britain.Ainger, p. 220 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.Dailey, p. 28; and Lawrence, pp. 163–164 Having just signed the five-year agreement, Sullivan suddenly felt trapped.Jacobs, p. 188 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.Jacobs, p. 187 Sullivan's close friend, the composer Frederic Clay, had recently suffered 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, "It is impossible for me to do another piece of the character of those already written by Gilbert and myself."Crowther, Andrew. "The Carpet Quarrel Explained", the Gilbert and Sullivan Archive, accessed 28 July 2018
Gilbert had already started work on a new opera in which the characters fell in love against their wills after taking 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 the words would be of similar character."Ainger, p. 230 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.Jacobs, pp. 190–193 The impasse was finally resolved on 8 May when Gilbert proposed a plot that did not depend on any supernatural device. The result was Gilbert and Sullivan's most successful work, The Mikado (1885).Rollins and Witts, p. 10 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.
Ruddigore followed The Mikado at the Savoy in 1887. It was profitable, but its nine-month run was disappointing compared with most of the earlier Savoy operas.Ainger, pp. 259–261 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.Ainger, pp. 265, 270 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.Ainger, pp. 281–282; and Jacobs, pp. 274–275 As early as 1883 Sullivan had been under pressure from the musical establishment to write a grand opera. In 1885 he told an interviewer, "The opera of the future is a compromise among – 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.""Sir Arthur Sullivan: A Talk With the Composer of Pinafore", San Francisco Chronicle, 22 July 1885, p. 9 After The Yeomen of the Guard opened, Sullivan turned again to Shakespeare, composing incidental music for Henry Irving's Lyceum Theatre production of Macbeth (1888).Hughes, p.19
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 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 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.Jacobs, pp. 282–283 and 288; and Ainger, p. 294 The comic opera was completed first: The Gondoliers (1889) was a piece described by Gervase Hughes as a pinnacle of Sullivan's achievement.Hughes, p. 24 It was the last great Gilbert and Sullivan success.Ainger, p. 303
Sullivan's only grand opera, Ivanhoe, based on Walter Scott's Ivanhoe, opened at Carte's new Royal English Opera House on 31 January 1891. Sullivan completed 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 () for his delay.Jacobs, pp. 328–329Ainger, p. 322 The production lasted for 155 consecutive performances, an unprecedented run for a grand opera, and earned good notices for its music.Gordon-Powell, Robin. Ivanhoe, full score, Introduction, vol. I, pp. XII–XIV, 2008, The Amber Ring Afterwards, Carte was unable to fill the new opera house with other opera productions and sold 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!"Klein, Herman. "An Account of the Composition and Production of Ivanhoe", Thirty Years of Musical Life in London, 1870–1900 (1903), reprinted at the Gilbert and Sullivan Archive, 3 October 2003, accessed 5 October 2014 Later in 1891 Sullivan composed music for Alfred Tennyson's The Foresters, which ran well at Daly's Theatre in New York in 1892, but failed in London 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.Jacobs, pp. 336–342 Although still comic, the tone and style of the work was considerably more serious and romantic than most of the operas with Gilbert. It ran for 204 performances, and was praised by critics.Jacobs, pp. 341–342 In 1895 Sullivan once more provided incidental music for the Lyceum, this time for J. Comyns Carr's .Jacobs, pp. 436–437
With the aid of an intermediary, Sullivan's music publisher Tom Chappell, the three partners were reunited in 1892.Ainger, p. 328 Their next opera, Utopia, Limited (1893), ran for 245 performances, barely covering the expenses of the lavish production,Ainger, p. 346 although it was the longest run at the Savoy in the 1890s.Coles, Clifton. " Mirette: Introduction", the Gilbert and Sullivan Archive, 28 May 1998, accessed 28 July 2018 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.Ainger, p. 352 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.Ainger, p. 357 Gilbert and Sullivan reunited one more time, after McIntosh announced her retirement from 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.Young, p. 201
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 the grand finale. Its six-month run was considered a great achievement.Jacobs, pp. 372–376 The Beauty Stone (1898), with a libretto by Arthur Wing Pinero and J. Comyns Carr, was based on mediaeval . 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",Entry from Sullivan's diary, quoted in Jacobs p. 379 and, when he asked for alterations to improve the structure, they refused.Jacobs, p. 379 The opera, moreover, was too serious for the Savoy audiences' tastes.Coles, Clifton. " The Beauty Stone: Notes on the Text", the Gilbert and Sullivan Archive, 2004, accessed 18 July 2018 It was a critical failure and ran for only seven weeks.Jacobs, pp. 379–380
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 () for the fund from performances and the sale of sheet music and related merchandise.Lycett, p. 432 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.Jacobs, pp. 387, 391–392 Another opera with Hood, The Emerald Isle, quickly went into preparation, but Sullivan died before it was completed. The score was finished by Edward German, and produced in 1901.Jacobs, p. 400
A monument in 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."Funeral of Sir Arthur Sullivan", The Times, 28 November 1900, p. 12 In addition to his knighthood, honours awarded to Sullivan in his lifetime included Doctor in Music, honoris causa, by the Universities of Cambridge (1876) and Oxford (1879); Chevalier, Légion d'honneur, France (1878); Order of the Medjidie conferred by the Ottoman Empire (1888); and appointment as a Member of the Fourth Class of the Royal Victorian Order (MVO) in 1897. The London Gazette, 9 July 1897, p. 54
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,Bradley (2005), pp. 30 and 68 and also Parody, , quoted and imitated in comedy routines, advertising, law, film, television, and other popular media.Downs, Peter. "Actors Cast Away Cares", Hartford Courant, 18 October 2006 Bradley, Chapter 1 He has been portrayed on screen in The Story of Gilbert and Sullivan (1953) and Topsy-Turvy (2000). " The Story of Gilbert and Sullivan (1953)" and " Topsy-Turvy", British Film Institute, accessed 13 December 2017. He 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.Jones, J. Bush. Our Musicals, Ourselves, pp. 10–11, 2003, Brandeis University Press: Lebanon, N.H. (2003) 1584653116
Sullivan's longest love affair was with the American socialite Fanny Ronalds, a woman three years his senior, who had separated from her American husband and was raising her children in Europe.Ainger, pp. 128–129 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 – and very abundant ... a lovely woman, with the most generous smile one could possibly imagine, and the most beautiful teeth."Quoted in Jacobs, p. 88 Sullivan called her "the best amateur singer in London".Ainger, p. 167 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.Ainger, p. 135 When Sullivan died, he left her the autograph manuscript of that song, along with other bequests.Ainger, p. 390
Ronalds 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.Jacobs, pp. 178, 203–204; and Ainger, pp. 210 and 237–238 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 the sexual relationship evidently ended – he started to refer to her in his diary as "Auntie"Jacobs, p. 295 – but she remained a constant companion for the rest of his life.Ainger, pp. 306 and 342
In 1896 the 54-year-old Sullivan proposed marriage to the 22-year-old Violet Beddington (1874–1962), but she refused him.Ainger, pp. 364–365
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 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."Lytton, Henry (1922). "Leaders of the Savoy", Secrets of a Savoyard, the Gilbert and Sullivan Archive, accessed 28 July 2018 Sullivan was also very fond of his brother Fred, whose acting career he assisted whenever possible, and of Fred's children.Hayes, passim After Fred died at the age of 39, leaving his pregnant wife, Charlotte, with seven children under the age of 14, Sullivan visited the family often and became guardian to the children.Hayes, pp. 6–7
In 1883 Charlotte and six of her children emigrated to Los Angeles, California, leaving the oldest boy, Herbert Sullivan, in Sullivan's sole care.Ainger, pp. 224–225 Despite his reservations about the move to the United States, Sullivan paid all the costs and gave substantial financial support to the family.Hayes, p. 9 A year later, Charlotte died, leaving 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.Hayes, pp. 14–22 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 the rest of the composer's life.Hayes, pp. 23–32
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.Stone, David. Kate Sullivan, Who Was Who in the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, 27 January 2007, accessed 28 July 2018 Jennie was a D'Oyly Carte chorister for fourteen years.Stone, David. Jennie Hervey, Who Was Who in the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, 8 August 2002, accessed 28 July 2018 Rose took principal roles in many of the companion pieces that played with the Savoy operas.Rollins and Witts, pp. 8, 10–12, 70, 71, 73–75 and 77; and Stone, David. Rose Hervey, Who Was Who in the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, 7 August 2002, accessed 28 July 2018See Sullivan family tree in appendix to Jacobs
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 home key altogether for the prelude.Eden and Saremba, pp. 76–77 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".Eden and Saremba, p. 57; and Klein, p. 196 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".Eden and Saremba, p. 60
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.Ainger, p. 138 He left the overtures until last and sometimes delegated their composition, based on his outlines, to his assistants, "Sir Arthur Sullivan", interviewed by The Pall Mall Gazette, 5 December 1889, reprinted at the Gilbert and Sullivan Archive, accessed 6 October 2011 often adding his suggestions or corrections.Hughes, p. 130 Those Sullivan wrote himself include Thespis,Rees, p. 79 Iolanthe, Princess Ida, The Yeomen of the Guard, The Gondoliers, The Grand Duke and probably Utopia, Limited.Hughes, pp. 130–141 Most of the overtures are structured as a pot-pourri of tunes from the operas in three sections: fast, slow and fast. Those for Iolanthe and The Yeomen of the Guard are written in a modified sonata form.Williams, p. 298
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. 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.Hughes, p. 128 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).Hughes, p. 125
Sullivan preferred to write in , overwhelmingly in the Savoy operas, and even in his serious works.Hughes, p. 52 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.
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." Both HughesHughes, p. 48 and Jacobs in Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians comment adversely on Sullivan's overuse of Pedal point, 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.Hughes, pp. 47–48 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".Hughes, p. 66
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, but in Jacobs's phrase it became almost "the trademark of Sullivan's operetta style".Hughes, p. 78 Sometimes the melodies were for solo voices, as in "I Am So Proud" ( The Mikado), which combines three melodic lines.Hughes, pp. 79 and 81–82 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).Hughes, pp. 79–80 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).Rees, p. 80
Sullivan rarely composed . Examples are from the "Epilogue" to The Golden Legend and Victoria and Merrie England.Hughes, pp. 73–74 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). Less formal counterpoint is employed in numbers such as "Brightly Dawns Our Wedding Day" ( The Mikado) and "When the Buds Are Blossoming" ( Ruddigore).Hughes, p. 75
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, 2 , 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.Seeley, Paul. "Authentic Sullivan", Opera, November 2016, p. 1372; and "The Savoy Opera Revival", The Observer, 28 September 1919 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.Hughes, p. 108 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.Findon, p. 107 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.Eden and Saremba, Appendix: The orchestration of Sullivan's major works
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.Hughes, p. 104 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).Hughes, p. 117
Sullivan adopted traditional musical forms, such as madrigals in The Mikado, Ruddigore and The Yeomen of the Guard and 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: in Ruddigore and The Gondoliers;Hughes, pp. 144–145 a country dance in The Sorcerer; a nautical hornpipe in Ruddigore; and the Spanish cachucha and Italian saltarello and tarantella in The Gondoliers. 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."The Rose of Persia; Or, the Story-teller and the Slave", The Era, 2 December 1899, p. 14
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 and Henry Purcell at their best." In his comic operas, he followed Offenbach's lead in lampooning the idioms of French and Italian opera, such as those of Donizetti, Vincenzo Bellini and Verdi.Hughes, pp. 150–151; and Jacobs, p. 52 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,Hughes, pp. 151 and 80 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.Scherer, Barrymore Laurence. "Gilbert & Sullivan, Parody's Patresfamilias", The Wall Street Journal, 23 June 2011, accessed 19 December 2017 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!". The chorus "With Catlike Tread" from The Pirates parodies Verdi's "Anvil Chorus" from Il trovatore.Hughes, pp. 150–151
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. In "A More Humane Mikado", at the words "Bach interwoven with Louis Spohr and Beethoven", the clarinet and bassoon quote the fugue subject of Bach's Fantasia and Fugue in G minor.Hughes, p. 109 Sullivan sometimes used Wagnerian 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.Williams, p. 217 In The Yeomen of the Guard the Tower of London is evoked by its own motif.Hughes, p. 143 This use of the leitmotif technique is repeated and developed further in Ivanhoe.Young, p. 223
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."Jacobs, p. 48 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."Jacobs, p. 49
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. ... 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."Gammond, p. 137 As early as 1877 London Figaro commented that Sullivan "wilfully throws his opportunity away. ... 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." The London Figaro, quoted in Allen, pp. 49–50 Few critics denied the excellence of Sullivan's theatre scores. 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."Beatty-Kingston, William. The Theatre, 1 January 1883, p. 28 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: "It is an advantage to have the composer of H.M.S. Pinafore occupying himself with a worthier form of art."25 October 1880, quoted in Jacobs, p. 149
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."Grove, George. "Sullivan, Arthur Seymour" Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, London 1879–89, p. 762, quoted in Sarema, Meinhard. "In the Purgatory of Tradition: Arthur Sullivan and the English Musical Renaissance", Deutsche Sullivan Gesellschaft, 2000, accessed 10 December 2017 Sullivan finally redeemed himself in critical eyes with The Golden Legend in 1886.Stanford, pp. 161–163 The Observer hailed it as a "triumph of English art"."Leeds Music Festival", The Observer, 17 October 1886, p. 6 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. ... The effect of the public performance was unprecedented."Quoted in Harris, p. IV
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: "The 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."Quoted in Allen, p. 312 Sullivan's only grand opera, Ivanhoe (1891), received generally favourable reviews,Dailey, pp. 129–133 although 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."Quoted in Jacobs, p. 331 Sullivan's 1897 ballet Victoria and Merrie England was one of several late pieces that won praise from most critics:"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
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".Maine, Basil. "Elgar, Sir Edward William", 1949, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography archive, accessed 20 April 2010 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.
Fuller Maitland's followers, including Ernest Walker, also dismissed Sullivan as "merely the idle singer of an empty evening".Hughes, p. 6 As late as 1966 Frank Howes, a music critic for The Times, condemned Sullivan for a "lack of sustained effort ... a fundamental lack of seriousness towards his art and inability to perceive the smugness, the sentimentality and banality of the Mendelssohnian detritus ... 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."Howes, p. 54 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."Dunhill 1928, p. 13
Henry Wood continued to perform Sullivan's serious music."Sir Henry Wood Jubilee Concert at Albert Hall", The Times, 6 October 1938, p. 10 In 1942 Wood presented a Sullivan centenary concert at the Royal Albert Hall, 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." 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. The Irish Symphony had its first professional recording in 1968, and many of Sullivan's non-Gilbert works have since been recorded.Shepherd, Marc. "Discography of Sir Arthur Sullivan", the Gilbert and Sullivan Discography, 10 July 2010, accessed 5 October 2014 Scholarly critical editions of an increasing number of Sullivan's works have been published.
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. ... Sullivan, a delicate wit, whose airs have a precision, a neatness, a grace, and a flowing melody"."The Lasting Charm of Gilbert and Sullivan: Operas of an Artificial World", The Times, 14 February 1957, p. 5 A 2000 article in The Musical Times by Nigel Burton noted the resurgence of Sullivan's reputation beyond the comic operas:
The first commercial recordings of Sullivan's music, beginning in 1898, were of individual numbers from the Savoy operas. In 1917 the Gramophone Company (HMV) produced the first album of a complete Gilbert and Sullivan opera, The Mikado, followed by eight more.Rollins and Witts, Appendix pp. x–xi; and Shepherd, Marc. "The First D'Oyly Carte Recordings", the Gilbert and Sullivan Discography, 18 November 2001, accessed 5 October 2014 Electrical recordings of most of the operas issued by HMV and Victor followed from the 1920s, supervised by Rupert D'Oyly Carte.Rollins and Witts, Appendix, pp. xi–xiii; and Shepherd, Marc. "G&S Discography: The Electrical Era", the Gilbert and Sullivan Discography, 18 November 2001, accessed 5 October 2014 The D'Oyly Carte Opera Company continued to produce recordings until 1979.Shepherd, Marc. "The D'Oyly Carte Stereo Recordings", the Gilbert and Sullivan Discography, 24 December 2003, accessed 5 October 2014 After the copyrights expired, recordings were made by opera companies such as Gilbert and Sullivan for AllShepherd, Marc. "The Gilbert and Sullivan for All recordings", the Gilbert and Sullivan Discography, accessed 8 September 2011, accessed 5 October 2014 and Opera Australia, and Malcolm SargentShepherd, Marc. "G&S Discography: The Stereo Era", the Gilbert and Sullivan Discography, accessed 18 November 2001, accessed 5 October 2014 and Sir Charles Mackerras each conducted audio sets of several Savoy operas.Shepherd, Marc. "G&S Discography: The Digital Era", the Gilbert and Sullivan Discography, 27 August 2002, accessed 5 October 2014Shepherd, Marc. "G&S on Film, TV and Video", the Gilbert and Sullivan Discography, 18 November 2001, accessed 5 October 2014 Since 1994, the International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival has released professional and amateur CDs and videos of its productions and other Sullivan recordings, "DVDs" , International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival, accessed 10 December 2017 and Ohio Light Opera has recorded several of the operas in the 21st century.Shepherd, Marc. "The Ohio Light Opera Recordings", the Gilbert and Sullivan Discography, 18 April 2010, accessed 2 December 2017
Sullivan's non-Savoy works were infrequently recorded until the 1960s. A few of his songs were put on disc in the early years of the 20th century, including versions of "The Lost Chord" by Enrico Caruso and Clara Butt.HMV 78 discs 02397 and 03151: Rust, p. xxxiv The first of many recordings of the Overture di Ballo was made in 1932, conducted by Sargent.Shepherd, Marc. "Overture di Ballo (1870)", the Gilbert and Sullivan Discography, 12 July 2009, accessed 10 December 2017 The Irish Symphony was first recorded in 1968 under Charles Groves. "Irish Symphony; Overture di Ballo", EMI LP ASD 2435, WorldCat, accessed 11 December 2017 Since then, much of Sullivan's serious music and his operas without Gilbert have been recorded, including the Cello Concerto by Julian Lloyd Webber (1986); "Romance, op. 62", EMI LP EL 27 0430 1, WorldCat, accessed 11 December 2017 and The Rose of Persia (1999); "The Rose of Persia", BBC Music Magazine, V7/9, WorldCat, accessed 11 December 2017 The Golden Legend (2001); "The Golden Legend", Hyperion CD set 67280, World Cat, accessed 11 December 2017 Ivanhoe (2009); "Ivanhoe", Chandos CD set CHAN 10578, WorldCat, accessed 11 December 2017 and The Masque at Kenilworth and On Shore and Sea (2014), "Early works of Arthur Sullivan: On Shore and Sea and Kenilworth", Dutton CD set DLX 7310, WorldCat, accessed 11 December 2017 conducted by, respectively, Tom Higgins, Ronald Corp, David Lloyd-Jones and Richard Bonynge. In 2017 Chandos Records released an album, Songs, which includes The Window and 35 individual Sullivan songs. "Songs", Chandos CD set CHAN 10935, WorldCat, accessed 10 December 2017 Mackerras's Sullivan ballet, Pineapple Poll, has received many recordings since its first performance in 1951. "Recordings of Pineapple Poll", the Gilbert and Sullivan Discography, 1 November 2009, accessed 10 December 2017
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