Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan MVO (13 May 1842 – 22 November 1900) was an English composer, of Irish and Italian descent, best known for his
operatic collaborations with
librettist W. S. Gilbert, including such continually-popular works as
H.M.S. Pinafore,
The Pirates of Penzance, and
The Mikado. Sullivan's artistic output included 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, parlour ballads, part songs, carols, and piano and chamber pieces.
Apart from his comic operas with Gilbert, Sullivan is best known for some of his hymns and parlour songs, including "Onward Christian Soldiers", "The Absent-Minded Beggar", and "The Lost Chord". His most critically-praised pieces include his Irish Symphony, his Overture di Ballo, The Martyr of Antioch, The Golden Legend, and, of the Savoy Operas, The Yeomen of the Guard. Sullivan's only grand opera, Ivanhoe, was initially highly successful, but it has been little heard since his death.
Sullivan was born in Lambeth, London.[1] His father, Thomas Sullivan (1805–1866), was a military bandmaster and music teacher born in Ireland, who was educated in Chelsea, London and was based for some years at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst.[2] Here Arthur became proficient with all the instruments in the band by the age of eight.[3] His mother Mary Clementina (née Coghlan, 1811–1882) was English, of Irish and Italian descent.[4][2] While studying at a private school in Bayswater, Sullivan convinced his parents and the headmaster, William Gordon Plees, to allow him to try out for the choir of the Chapel Royal. Despite concerns about Sullivan's age, which would limit how long he could serve before his voice began to change, he was accepted and soon became a soloist.[5] Sullivan flourished under the training of Reverend Thomas Helmore, the master of the choristers, and began to compose anthems and songs.[6] Helmore arranged for one of these, "O Israel", to be published by Novello in 1855 – Sullivan's first published work. Helmore also enlisted Sullivan's assistance in creating harmonisations for a volume of The Hymnal Noted.[7]
In 1856, the Royal Academy of Music awarded the first Mendelssohn Scholarship to the fourteen-year-old Sullivan, granting him a year's training at the academy.[8][9][10] This was extended to a second year at the academy, and in 1858 the scholarship committee, in an "extraordinary gesture of confidence",[11] extended it for a third year so that he could study in Leipzig, Germany, at the Leipzig Conservatoire.[11] While there, Sullivan was trained in Mendelssohn's ideas and techniques but was also exposed to a variety of new musical styles, including Schubert, Verdi, Bach and Wagner.[12] Visiting a Jewish synagogue, he was so struck by some of the cadences and progressions of the music that thirty years later he would still remember it vividly enough to use them in his grand opera, Ivanhoe.[12] He also developed various acquaintances and friendships at Leipzig, such as Carl Rosa, who was later to create the Carl Rosa Opera Company; violinist Joseph Joachim, and composer Franz Liszt.[13] For his last year at the Conservatoire, money was scraped together by his father, and the Conservatoire assisted by waiving its fees.[14]
