SIR ARTHUR SULLIVAN.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXII, Issue 16, 19 January 1901, Page 5 (Supplement)

SIR ARTHUR SULLIVAN.

SOME INTERESTING ANECDOTES

Though Sir Arthur Sullivan made a very large income of late he spent it lavishly and has not died a rich man. Few were more g-enerous to brother artists in distress and he had besides an expensive penchant for racing. All who knew him loved him. The service in St. Paul's was a splendid function (what Sir George Grey's should have been), but there can De no doubt its culminating moment was the rendering by the Savoy singei'S of the funeral anthem, "Brother, thou are g-one before us." "Often (writes a famous musical'critic) has that noble inspiration stirred the heart' of thousands. I shall never forget the effect at Leeds twenty years ago. Its effect now, though, sung by weeping women and men, who could barely see their notes through their tears, conducted by the deceased master's friend and comrade, Francois Cellier —the effect of the wonderful refrain, 'Where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest,' as the tremulous voices sent it echoing again a.nd again to the furthest corners of the grey cathedral —this was indescribably moving, and all around where I stood by the coffin there was not a dry eye to be seen. Thus honoured and mourned, Sir Arthur Sullivan passed to his last rest amidst solemnities worthy of England's greatest musician, and amidst tokens of grief such as genius alone, however exalted, could'nt possibly command without the aid of the qualities that earn a man universal love and esteem. Itequiescat in pace."

One who know Sir Arthur intimately writes: "Sir Arthur Sullivan once observed that the success of his comic operas was due to the fact that he was the first to treat English church music in humorous fashion. He then sat down to the piano and showed how slight a difference of rendering was needed to turn melodies from 'Pinafore,' 'Pirates' and 'Patience into music which would sound suitable for an ordinary English service. Sir Arthur on the same occasion said that no amount of theoretical study of choral writing gave such knowledge of part music as that derived from experience as a parish organist. Though he could play nearly every instrument in the orchestra, he always seemed most at ease at the organ. Of all his own compositions, the one which appealed to him most was the beautiful 'In Meruoriam' overture, written after the death of his father. His favourite among- his comic operas was the 'Yeoman of the Guard,' and he was specially pleased whenever his overture 'Di Ballo' was In a. programme. 'Ivanhoe' was, of course, a great disappointment, for it might have been a fresh starting-point for our national music. He used to say that, the greatest ovation he ever received was after the first performance of 'The Golden Legend.' He wrote in his orchestration with astonishing rapidity: but from a remark he made about three weeks ago the scoring of the Irish opera on which he was working cannot have proceeded far."

Says the same correspondent: "An interesting feature in the career of Sir Arthur Sullivan, which has escaped notice, is the way in which his most poignant music arose from family bereavment. To no man were ever family ties more sacred than to the dead composer. The grief for his father inspired the dignified pathos of the 'In Memoriam* overture. Fraternal affection was embodied in 'Thou Art Passing Hence, My Brother,'which has occupied a foremost place in the

rppertoire of Mr Santley ever since it was published. He wrote ballads with amazing fertility when he was supporting the widowed mother whose memory in after years always formed the theme of his tendeivst allusions. Reproached by a lady who knew him well for not devoting himself in his j prime to more ambitious music, Sullivan answered: 'These ballads enable me to provide all that my mother may want.' " Although Sir Arthur Sullivan willingly undertook to write the music for Kipling's "Absent-minded Beggar"—

and gave the fee to rlr-3 Y\*ar Fund —it was not long (writes a correspondent) before he repented of his bargain. For da.ys he could not hammer out an

air that would fit the words, and he told a friend of the writer's that he had never in his Jifc had ;i, sot of ver.-ses that gave him so much 1 rouble. "Pay! pay! pay!"' he exciahnod with an air of comic distraction; "how in the name of a.ll that's poetical can one write music to such stuff? I've hardly had a wink of sleep for a week through thinking about it." And when the music was finished Sir Artliur frankly confessed that it was the worst he had ever written, and declared that he would rather write a whole Savoy opera than undertake such a task again.