When Arthur Sullivan tried out Edison’s new invention of the phonograph cylinder in 1888, he commented that he was terrified by the prospect of recorded music. At the same time as considering the phonograph to be a wonderful invention, he objected prophetically to ‘so much hideous and bad music on record forever’.
If you’ve watched the X Factor lately, you may be inclined to agree with him. Alongside all of the wonderful recorded output that we can listen to whenever we like runs the musically awful and frankly superficial mush that seems to draw the most attention and gain the greatest sales.
When Sullivan made that famous phonograph recording, he was already a rich man. He had enjoyed a decade of fame and renown for the light operas created in partnership with W.S. Gilbert. He could look back at the success and acclaim given to HMS Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance, Iolanthe, Princess Ida and The Mikado with the satisfaction of someone who knows the formula that will bring more fame and fortune. Yet these works did not give him the satisfaction or recognition that he really craved.
Serious recognition
His deepest desire was to be recognised as a serious composer and performer. As a developing talent, his musical abilities had been more promising than the comic operas might suggest. From the age of eight, he had drawn the attention accorded to musical prodigies. He attended the Royal Academy of Music, followed by the Leipzig Conservatory, which was at that time the finest institution of musical training in the world, and he learnt from the most highly regarded musicians of the time. At the age of 20, in 1862, he returned to London and became an overnight success with his Tempest Orchestral Suite, feted by Rossini.
It looked as though Sullivan was set to become a great composer. But his historical legacy was to change when he met W.S. Gilbert at the age of 29. They began to write light opera together and were a roaring success throughout the 1870s and 80s.
It is for these works that Sullivan is best remembered. Very few people today would know that in 1886, a few years after The Mikado, Sullivan wrote The Golden Legend, a cantata that was so popular that it was regarded in his lifetime as his most successful work. Queen Victoria herself praised his talents, saying: ‘You should write a grand opera. You would do it so well’. The Queen continued to champion his serious music, giving him a knighthood and requesting that it was Sullivan who should set her jubilee hymn to music. She accorded him the final honour at his death in 1900 of giving him a state funeral followed by a burial in St. Paul’s Cathedral.
In his later years, Sullivan referred to his works with Gilbert as his ‘lasting shame’. He longed for the status of a serious composer. But after his split from D’Oyly Carte and Gilbert, his audiences could not adjust to his weightier composing and the 1891 production of Ivanhoe, a libretto, could not be tolerated by audiences wanting more Mikado.
Wayward lifestyle
It would be wonderful if we were able to recognise evidence of personal faith in Sullivan’s life. He wrote a total of 72 hymn tunes including St. Gertrude (‘Onward Christian soldiers’), and the Propior Deo version of ‘Nearer My God, to Thee’. There were bigger works with a biblical focus, too, such as his oratorios: The Prodigal Son, 1869, and The Light of the World, about the life of the Christ, 1873. Yet his lifestyle was inconsistent with a deeper faith and not dissimilar to the celebrity headlines that are used to today. He spent much time during his last years in Monte Carlo, gambling and drinking away his money and finally losing his health.
Sullivan himself seemed to know that his legacy would be a far cry from the heights that he longed for. He knew what he had forfeited by chasing after popular taste and he regretted it deeply. He must have known that Christ himself challenged his followers to examine their own lives and make their choices regarding him carefully, asking: ‘What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?’ I wonder if he ever considered that the disconnection he felt between his achievements and his desires might mirror a disconnection with God, that a longer lasting shame might be to reject the God who made him?
