If asked to name a writer of Irish background, many of us could rattle off a half-dozen names like we were reciting our date of birth.
But if asked to name an Irish composer, then most of us would begin to hesitate. Our eyes would blink, our lips would curl, our heads would tilt while the brain struggles to process the mustier files in our index of knowledge. Surely there must be an Irish composer of note. At least one. Without a doubt.
Despite having Irish heritage on both sides, Arthur Sullivan often enters the books as an English composer because he was from London. The younger of two children, he was born on May 13, 1842. His mother, Mary Clementina Sullivan née Coghlan, was also born in London, and had both Irish and Italian heritage. His father, Thomas Sullivan, who was born in Cork in 1805, enlisted in the British Army at age 15 and later served as a bandmaster at the Royal Military College.
Sullivan’s father could see that his son had abundant musical talent. By the age of eight, he could already “play every instrument in the military band,” as related on the website of the Sir Arthur Sullivan Society.
Despite the son’s precocious talent, the father tried to dissuade him from a musical career because of its financial insecurity. But these warnings went ignored.
The younger Sullivan received a scholarship from the Royal Academy of Music and also received funding for ensuing study at Germany’s Leipzig Conservatory, then regarded as the world’s foremost venue for musical instruction.
For over a decade after graduating, he worked as a church organist, which he enjoyed, and also as a music instructor, which he did not enjoy. He saw considerable early notoriety for his musical score that accompanied renditions of Shakespeare’s “The Tempest.”
The 1870s would prove the decisive decade in Sullivan’s life. The most important development occurred at the start of the decade, when Sullivan first met the dramatist W.S. Gilbert. For a 15-year period, Gilbert was Sullivan’s collaborator on a shared body of work that became known as the “Savoy Operas.”
The first fruit of their collaboration appeared in 1871 with the comic opera “Thespis.” But it was their 1878 collaboration “H.M.S. Pinafore” that brought international renown.
It is worth noting that Sullivan, who often had health issues, composed this energetically cheerful music while enduring the intense physical discomfort of kidney stones.
Such biographies as Arthur Sullivan: A Victorian Musician relate how Sullivan, despite his wild popularity (or perhaps because of it), faced continuous criticism. Various prominent critics felt that much of his work, particularly his operatic work, was too light and frivolous-sounding, and that a composer of his alleged talents should focus on work that expresses more profound sentiments.
Sullivan actually held a viewpoint similar to these critics, but the financial benefits of his comic operas made them too difficult to quit. Also, many people loved his work, regardless of how members of the artistic establishment may have felt. And in 1883, Queen Victoria knighted Sullivan for his contributions to music in the U.K.
Not long after attaining knighthood, Sullivan (and Gilbert) emerged with “The Mikado,” which was their most popular collaboration and saw more repeat performances than just about any other piece of musical theater in any era up to that point.
Sullivan expressed his hope to combine elements of French, German and Italian composers for “a grand opera.” His attempt at a more serious work, “The Yeomen of the Guard,” went public in 1888.
Though Sullivan’s own comments would indicate he was much jaded with comic opera, he still managed to compose one more very successful work in that genre, “The Gondoliers.”
Like many partnerships, Gilbert & Sullivan eventually saw some degree of tension: Sullivan sometimes thought that Gilbert’s plots were a bit far-fetched, even for comic opera. Artistic disagreements were likely endurable, but things became downright toxic once the two fell into financial quarrels that also involved their stage manager.
Sullivan sided with the stage manager, and then Gilbert undertook legal action against them both. By 1890, their storied partnership was broken “in hostile antagonism over a few miserable pounds,” as Sullivan remarked.
Aside from operas, Sullivan composed significant numbers of ballets, orchestral works and songs ranging from parlor ballads to church hymns, including “Onward, Christian Soldiers.”
In the mid-1890s, Sullivan and Gilbert reunited to collaborate once again, but many felt that the quality of their joint efforts had much declined. Their 1896 comic opera, “The Grand Duke,” was unsuccessful, and marked the end of their run.
In his post-Gilbert life, Sullivan continued to write on his own and also entered into a few brief and comparatively less successful collaborations.
Sullivan was never married but had several female companions over the course of his life. Not long before his death, he proposed marriage to a 22-year-old woman, but she declined. For many years he had taken care of his older brother’s seven children after the brother died prematurely.
A generous host and charming social companion, Sullivan was on friendly terms with many members of European royalty. An avid gambler at casinos along the French Riviera, he also enjoyed playing tennis but, according to a February 1901 article in The Pall Mall Magazine, was almost uniquely inept.
While suffering bronchitis, Sullivan succumbed to heart failure at his London home on Nov. 22, 1900, at age 58.
The composer achieved harmony even with his death, which took place on the feast day of St. Cecilia — patron saint of music.
Leave a Reply