Arthur Sullivan
      Orchestral Works

* Symphony in E "Irish"
* Imperial March
* Victoria and Merrie England Ballet Suite No. 1
* Overture in C (In Memoriam)

BBC Concert Orchestra/Oawin Arwel Hughes
cpo 999171-2 Total time: 72:25

Summary for the Busy Executive: Not quite superfluous.

Today, we know Arthur Seymour Sullivan (his initials embarrassed him)
almost exclusively as William Gilbert's musical partner - the co-creator
of the Savoy operas, a genre practically sui generis which managed to
outlast by quite a bit its Offenbachian model.  The partnership was
fractious to the point of legend, and both men wrote, away from one
another, great successes in their own day.  Gilbert's only lasting
non-collaborative piece is the Bab Ballads - with the works of Carroll
and Lear, a pillar of Victorian nonsense.  Sullivan scored lasting,
though minor, sentimental successes with certain hymns and, of course,
with that parlor favorite, "The Lost Chord." Up until roughly forty years
ago, the musical public forgot Sullivan's eminence as the greatest British
composer of his day.  This might sound like the answer to the question
of the best haute cuisine in Mudville, until we realize that a music
critic as acute as George Bernard Shaw admired Sullivan's work tremendously
and with a clear eye.  At any rate, about forty to sixty years ago,
performers began to explore the obscure corners of Sullivan's catalogue
and found music well worth reviving.

Sullivan studied in Leipzig, at the conservatory first headed by
Mendelssohn (although Mendelssohn had died by the time Sullivan got
there), and he learned Mendelssohn's style.  Mendelssohn's star has sunk
pretty low these days - why, I don't really know, since I love Mendelssohn's
work - and the idiom has sunk with it.  I'm convinced people don't know
Mendelssohn's music, beyond the usual pieces, nearly at all well enough
to be turned off by it.  I should say that Mendelssohn is a greater
composer by far than Sullivan.  Sullivan writes marvelous tunes, beautifully
harmonized and orchestrated.  But he has a relatively loose grip on large
form.  He certainly doesn't take you for a ride like Brahms or Mendelssohn
at his best, but it's good enough.  He can put together a persuasive
large piece. The Symphony is probably his most successful large work.
In case you're wondering, I don't count the cello concerto as Sullivan's,
since the only manuscript went up in the Crystal Palace fire.  We get
instead Charles Mackerras's recollection of the piece.  The result lacks
the professionalism, at least, of Sullivan's other orchestral work and
doesn't convince me.  I love the Symphony, however - to me the best
British symphony before the Elgar First, which, of course, blows the
Sullivan away.  Nevertheless, if you have a taste for Mendelssohn,
Sullivan's "Irish" Symphony should appeal to you.  It moves, propelled
by ingenious rhythms and bright tunes.

The late Imperial March is almost a potboiler, written for Queen
Victoria's opening of the Imperial Institute in London.  Those who know
Sullivan's Yeomen of the Guard/Ivanhoe manner will recognize the style
of the march as well as Sullivan's gradual expansion of his influences
to include the harmonies of early Wagner.  The scoring is particularly
sumptuous.  Sullivan was given a 98-piece orchestra to conduct at the
premiere, and he makes good use of it.  It's not all jingoistic swagger.
There are some lovely, expansive lyrical passages as well, but Sullivan
doesn't let the audience forget that it has come to celebrate Empire.
The work ends in stentorian brass.

In Memoriam, inspired by the death of Sullivan's father, is, like the
Symphony, another early work.  Again, Mendelssohn is the chief influence.
There's no question that Sullivan wanted to write an "important" piece.
Relative to the rest of Sullivan's output, it is important, and it carries
the same virtues as the Symphony: moving along nifty rhythms and a sweet
melodic line.  However, it does lack grandeur, despite a finale in which
the composer throws in an organ to beef things up.  It rises to the level
of, say, Mendelssohn's Fingal's Cave, but not Elijah, and one comes
across a bit of padding here and there, serving little purpose other
than to change key.

Sullivan wrote mainly for the theater, for the simple reason that it
paid and, after a certain point, paid very well.  He produced not only
popular operettas, but incidental music to plays and (according to the
custom of the time) interpolations into other operas as well.  Although
Sullivan wrote the ballet Victoria and Merrie England for Victoria's
Diamond Jubilee, he fully expected - and got - a popular theatrical run.
Nevertheless, the score remained unpublished, and, as far as I know,
this is the first recording of any music from the work.  The band performs
three numbers from over 100 pages of score, and I hope someone sees fit
to record the thing entire, since the liner notes hint at still-buried
treasure, including a finale that contrapuntally weaves together folk
songs from England, Scotland, and Ireland.  Sullivan did re-use certain
early material which had remained unperformed, including stuff from an
early opera The Sapphire Necklace.  We get here a lovely, long-breathing
nocturne, a tripping allegretto reminiscent of many entrances of the
ladies' chorus in the Savoy operas, and a vigorous allegro not out of
place among the men's chorus in Pinafore or Pirates.

The problem with the release is that, excepting the snippets from the
ballet, every one of these works has had a better recording from the
gang at EMI.  They are all available in a huge 16-CD set (you can get
it for slightly over $100 at Arkivmusic and Amazon), which includes the
Sargent Glyndebourne recordings of the Savoy operas, the faux cello
concerto, and incidental music for Shakespeare plays.  That, to me, is
the edition to get.  Hughes's band plays a bit ragged, and In Memoriam
drags.  Hughes does best with Victoria and Merrie England, but of course
I have nothing to compare with it.  The sound is fine.

Steve Schwartz