Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan (May 13, 1842 – November 22, 1900) was a British composer best known for his operatic collaborations with librettist William S. Gilbert.

Sullivan was born in Lambeth, now part of London. His father was a military bandmaster, and by the time Arthur had reached the age of 8, he was proficient with all the instruments in the band. Following a stay at private school in Bayswater, he was admitted to the choir of the Chapel Royal, attending its school in Cheyne Walk. While there, he began to compose anthems and songs. In 1856, he received the first Mendelssohn prize and became a student at the Royal Academy of Music until 1858.

In 1858, Sullivan travelled to Leipzig, where he continued his studies and took up conducting. He credited this period with tremendous musical growth, and his return to London in 1862 saw the production of his incidental music to Shakespeare's The Tempest performed at the Crystal Palace. He began building a reputation as Britain's premier composer, and 1866 saw the first performance of his Symphony in E Major (Irish). Other pieces from this period include the overture In Memoriam (1866), the oratorio The Prodigal Son (1869), the well-known tune to the hymn "Onward, Christian Soldiers" (1872, lyrics by Sabine Baring-Gould) and the song "The Lost Chord" (1877, lyrics by Adelaide Anne Procter) , written in sorrow at the death of his brother Fred who had premiered the role of The Learned Judge in Trial by Jury .

In 1866, he supplemented his income by producing the musical score to a one act comic operetta, Cox and Box. This led to his most famous and lucrative works as a composer for the musical theatre. In the spring of 1867, the play was reviewed by William S. Gilbert on behalf of a humor magazine called Fun, unknowingly taking the

In the autumn of 1867, he travelled with Sir George Grove to Vienna, returning with a treasure-trove of rescued Schubert scores.

In 1871, John Hollingshead commissioned Sullivan to work with Gilbert to create the burlesque Thespis for the Gaiety Theatre. The show was successful in the context that it was conceived specifically as a Christmas entertainment and as such ran through to Easter 1872. Plans to revise and revive the piece in 1876 were abandoned when Richard D'Oyly Carte's backers demanded a new show for their money and not a revival. The score was subsequently lost, though one number Little Maid of Arcadee was published by Cramer in 1872 and another, Climbing over rocky mountain, was later re-used in The Pirates of Penzance. Recent research would seem to indicate that more than just this one number was reused in the later show.

Gilbert and Sullivan's real collaborative efforts began in 1875, when Richard D'Oyly Carte commissioned them to write a one-act piece, Trial by Jury. Its success was so great that the three men formed an often turbulent partnership which lasted for twenty years and thirteen operettas. Trial was followed in 1877 by The Sorcerer, and in 1878 by their greatest success so far, HMS Pinafore. This last was much pirated in America, and in 1879, Gilbert and Sullivan crossed the Atlantic to protect their copyrights, producing The Pirates of Penzance in New York.

The next Gilbert and Sullivan operetta, Patience, opened in the Opera Comique, London, in 1881 and was transferred to the specially built Savoy Theatre later the same year. All the duo's subsequent collaborations, which include Iolanthe (1882), The Mikado (1885) and The Yeomen of the Guard (1888), opened there, and the genre of operetta that they created is sometimes known as "Savoy Opera" as a result. The final two Savoy operas were Utopia, Limited and The Grand Duke.

Sullivan's orchestra was typical of any other vaudeville orchestra of that era: 2 flutes (+piccolo), oboe, 2 clarinets, bassoon, 2 horns,

In 1883, Sullivan was knighted by Queen Victoria. Contemporary critics felt that this should put an end to his career as an operetta composer, believing that a musical knight should not stoop below the level of oratorio or "grand opera". Sullivan too, despite the financial security the Savoy operettas gave him, increasingly viewed his work with Gilbert as unimportant and beneath his skills. Furthermore, he was unhappy that he was having to tone down his music to ensure that Gilbert's words could be heard. In 1886, Sullivan went some way to appeasing his critics by the production of the cantata The Golden Legend, which he and most of his contemporaries considered his masterpiece. Gilbert wrote the more serious The Yeomen of the Guard to satisfy Sullivan's urge for grand opera, and, while Sullivan was pacified for a time, in 1890, he broke away acrimoniously from Gilbert following the production of The Gondoliers and, with D'Oyly Carte, produced his only grand opera, Ivanhoe, at the new English Opera House. Subsequently however he returned to work with Gilbert on two more operettas and wrote three more with other collaborators.

Sullivan, who had suffered from ill health throughout his life, succumbed to pneumonia at the age of 58 at his house in London on November 22, 1900. A monument in his memory was erected in the Victoria Embankment Gardens (London) and is inscribed with W.S.Gilbert's words from The Yeomen of the Guard "Is life a boon? If so, it must befall that Death, whene'er he call, must call too soon". He wished to be buried in Bromley cemetery with his parents and brother, but by order of the queen was buried in St Paul's Cathedral.

Overtures

The overtures from Sullivan's comic operas remain popular and there are many recordings of them. They present many of the popular tunes from the operas, and are generally well orchestrated, but few of them were composed by Sullivan. He generally delegated the arrangement of the overtures to assistants, with - probably, though there is no evidence of it - broad instructions on which tunes to use. Research to date suggests that Sullivan himself wrote the overtures to Cox and Box, Iolanthe, The Yeomen of the Guard, The Gondoliers and The Grand Duke. Most of the overtures are in three sections: a lively introduction, a slow middle section and a concluding foot-tapping allegro in something like sonata form, with two subjects, a development of sorts, a recapitulation and a coda. The overtures written by Sullivan are generally regarded as superior to those put together by his assistants, with the exception of The Gondoliers, which begins with splendid energy but rather tails off thereafter and ends so lamely that latter-day D'Oyly Carte conductors either tacked on the Cachucha or segued into the opening chorus without a pause (for which the Eulenberg score adduces some slight historical justification).

Gilbert and Sullivan inspired Ballet

"Pineapple Poll" is a comic ballet written by John Cranko in collaboration with Sir Charles Mackerras. The music which is used for the ballet is exclusively by Arthur Sullivan, from various Gilbert and Sullivan operas, and also from Arthur Sullivan's overture "Di Ballo", as well as from the comic opera "Cox and Box" (which Arthur Sullivan wrote in collaboration with Francis Burnand).

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