Show HOW A MUSICAL COMPOSER COMPOSES san ban francisco chronicle although sir arthur seymour sullivan is now in his fifty sixth year his energy has not one whit abated his first composition the music to shake tempest was composed as far back as 1860 and his first opera was produced thirty years ago to the fer tilita of his rare gl genius sir arthur sullivan has added an infinite capacity tor for unceasing hard work there Is hardly any phase of musical composition which he has not treated and beautified and the fruit of his wonderful versatility is 18 to be found in oratorio hymns songs and cantatas cant atas as well as in the ever popular gilbert sulivan operas chich have been such a source of innocent merriment and a perpetual delight to hundreds of thousands on both sides of the atlantic sir arthur was the younger son of thomas sullivan a clever irishman who from 1848 1845 to 1856 occupied the po of bandmaster at the military college sandhurst while his mother was descended from an old italian family and the italian blood in his veins may perhaps serve as an explanation to those who are curious in questions of heredity for the almost vivacity of his manner which Is ap on of sir arthurs most salient characteristics acte while he has added to it a very english or irish dogged deter mi min atlon nation and persistence a quality which has been remarkably displayed in the way in which he has done his best work under the greatest I 1 ties as a great part of his most niel melo 1 I dious and most humorous light operas 8 were composed and orchestrated in th midst of illness and in the intervals or of 5 great physical pain young arthur sullivans practical training in orchestral matters begar began very early for there were hardly aray in his fathers instruments band aa t sandhurst which he did not learn tal to play with facility mr sullivan waa we happy in the belief that his younger son possessed rare musical ability al Q though he could have had no conseptio of the preeminent pre eminent distinction which hi destined to attain at son was the age aa of 11 nothing would satisfy the erl em musician but that his fathel should get him into the choir at th chapel royal in 1856 the mendelssohn scholarship was instituted the erst while chorister came out at the head or of I 1 the list it may be of interest to men I 1 tion that sir joseph bamby was one or i the candidates he left england at 18 to study ir in leipsic the success which attendee attended A the tempest music when it was I 1 deuced at the crystal palace concert oil cri 1 I the composers return to london in s was immediate and emphatic and ana 1 among those who came to hear it per formed on the second occasion waa wasi charles dickens j 1 I am afraid I 1 have never had birne tl raif to wait for inspiration sir arthur saia to a london strand interviewer ar T 1 I one waited for the right mood or toy for i things to occur to one one would r I 1 should imagine do little or nothing a 1 alli cannot say that anything ever oc curs to me until I 1 have the paper actu I 1 ally in front of me I 1 dont use u be th I 1 piano in composition that would limit limia me terribly I 1 can admit this much td regard to the inspirational theory that th in actual work a phrase does sometimes so e come into ones head which one cne feels bound to put in and it will hap hao pen of course that one day work comes 1 easily while another day it is mor wl ore difficult i then taking the subject a step i further sir arthur laid particular stress upon one point of considerable interest as it is a distinguishing feature of his method of work 3 the first thing I 1 have to decide upon said sir arthur is the rhythm and I 1 decide on that before I 1 come to a 1 the question of melody the notes must come afterward take for instance the song from the mikado the sun aw whose rays are all ablaze with ever living glory you will see that as far a as rhythm is concerned and quite apart from the unlimited possibilities of melody there are a good many different ways of treating those words yow gee five out of the six methods were commonplace mon place and my first aim always j S to get as much originality as possible out of the rhythm and then I 1 approach the question of melody afterward or of course sir arthur continued ath the melody may always come before meter with other composers but it is not so BO with me if I 1 feel that I 1 cannot get the accents right in any other way I 1 marte mark out the meter in dots and dashes ant not until I 1 have quite settled on the rhythm do I 1 proceed to actual notation A piece of music which will only take two minutes in actual performance quick time may necessitate tour four or five days hard work in the merw mere manual labor of orchestration apa apart from the original composition th the literary man can avoid manual labor in a number of ways but you cannot dictate musical notations to a secretary when the sketch to is completed which means writing rewriting and aad alterations alteration i of every kind the work ill 0 drawn out in so called skeleton score that is with all the vocal parts and rests for symphonies etc complete com but without a note of accompany S or instrumental work of any kind although I 1 have all that in my mind then the voice parts are written out by the copyist and the rehearsals besin the composer or in his absence the accompanist of the aneater tn eater vamp ing the accompaniment it is not until the music has been thoroughly learned and the rehearsals on the stage with action business and so on are well advanced that I 1 begin the work of orchestration when that is finished the band parts are copied two or three rehearsals of the orchestra are held then orchestra and voices without any stage business or action and finally three or four full rehearsals of the complete work on the stage are enough to prepare the work for presentation to the public meanwhile the full score has been taken and from it an accompaniment to the voice parts has been reduced for the piano this work has recently been undertaken by sir arthurs secretary wilfrid bendall himself a composer of numerous successful operettas ope and cantatas cant atas so that the words and tousle that is to say the music for the piano and the voice part are ready for the public by the time the piece Is produced fiut the rapidity with which sir arthur sullivan works is indeed iua ihs when one recollects the power originality and beauty of the result wa first otera was composed scored and rehearsed within sixteen days from the time he received the libretto the overture to lo 1101 lanthe anthe was commenced at 9 p m and finished at 7 a m the next morning that to the yeomen of the guard the opera which is now running as a revival in london was composed and ac pred red in twelve hours while the epilogue epie e to the golden legend which for dignity breadth and power as a well faloon critic once stated stands out from among any of his choral exam ples was composed and scored within hours apart from the creative part of the work such manual dexterity is indeed almost incredible sir arthur says that although the mikado and pinafore would probably receive the popular vote the yeomen of the guard was his own favorite work in light opera because the story told is of more sustained and dramatic interest and afforded him better opportunity for more sentimental and serious work I 1 Arn amusing taing stories are related of the tage rage which pinafore created everywhere although curiously enough it went very slowly at first the rage to america and in a news the time there to is a notice to the effect affect that in one city alone barrel organs were built to play nothing but pinafore what never I 1 vell lvell hardly ever became a catch phrae of the most fearful type one editor found himself com polled to forbid the use of the phrase by his staff on an pain of instant dismissal it occurred twenty times in as a many articles in yesterdays edition lie said to them on one oc eon caeton never let me see it used again agai nill what never was the wholly 1 unanimous question well hardly ever replied the wretched man |