Arthur Sullivan

Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan MVO (13 May 1842 – 22 November 1900) is an English composer.

He is best known for his series of 14 operatic collaborations with the dramatist W. S. Gilbert, including such enduring works as H.M.S.

Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado.

Sullivan composes 23 operas, 13 major orchestral works, eight choral works and oratorios, two ballets, incidental music to several plays, and numerous hymns and other church pieces, songs, and piano and chamber pieces.

The best known of his hymns and songs include "Onward Christian Soldiers" and "The Lost Chord".

The son of a military bandmaster, Sullivan composes his first anthem at age eight.

He is selected as soloist in the boys' choir of the Chapel Royal.

The Reverend Thomas Helmore, the choirmaster, encourages Sullivan and arranged for the publication and performance of his early compositions.

In 1856, the Royal Academy of Music awards the first Mendelssohn Scholarship to the 14-year-old Sullivan, allowing him to study first at the Academy and then in Germany, at the Leipzig Conservatoire.

His graduation piece is a suite of incidental music to Shakespeare's The Tempest.

When it is performed in London in 1862, it is an immediate sensation.

Sullivan begins his composing career with a series of ambitious works, interspersed with hymns, parlor ballads and other light pieces.

Among his best received early pieces are a ballet, L'Île Enchantée (1864), and his Irish Symphony, Cello Concerto and Overture in C (In Memoriam) (all in 1866).

From 1861 to 1872, he supplements his income by working as a church organist and as a music teacher.

In 1866, Sullivan composes his first one-act comic opera, Cox and Box, which is still widely performed.

His most successful orchestral work, the Overture di Ballo, premieres in 1870, and the next year he publishes a song cycle, among other works.

Sullivan's talent and native charm earn him many friends in musical and social circles, including Queen Victoria's son Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh.

Also in 1871, Sullivan writes his first opera with W. S. Gilbert, Thespis.

The two then go their separate ways, and Sullivan produces his Festival Te Deum (1872), an oratorio, The Light of the World (1873), and other pieces, including incidental music for West End productions of several Shakespeare plays.

He also has conducting and academic appointments.

In 1875, however, producer Richard D'Oyly Carte reunites Gilbert and Sullivan to create a one-act piece, Trial by Jury, which becomes a surprise hit.

Their 1878 opera H.M.S.

Pinafore became an international sensation, as does The Pirates of Penzance (1879) and Patience (1881).

Carte uses his profits from the Gilbert and Sullivan partnership to build the Savoy Theatre in 1881, and their joint works then becaome known as the Savoy operas.

Later hits in the series are Iolanthe (1882), The Mikado (1885), The Yeomen of the Guard (1888) and The Gondoliers (1889).

Sullivan is knighted for his contributions to music in 1883.

His infrequent serious pieces during the 1880s include two oratorios, The Martyr of Antioch (1880) and The Golden Legend (1886), his most popular choral work.

Sullivan's only serious opera, Ivanhoe, though initially highly successful in 1891, is little-heard after that.

Gilbert beaks from Sullivan in 1890, quarreling over expenses at the Savoy.

They reunite in the 1890s for two more operas, but those do not achieve popularity.

Sullivan continues to compose comic operas with other librettists and a number of other major and minor works throughout the decade.

After the death of his brother Fred in 1877, Sullivan supporteds Fred's widow and children financially for the rest of his life, effectively adopting his nephew Bertie.

Sullivan dies at the age of 58, regarded as the finest British composer of the 19th century.

His comic opera style serves as a model for the generations of musical theater composers that follow, and his music is still frequently performed, recorded and pastiched.

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