Sir Walter Newman Flower (1879–1964) was an English publisher and author who revitalized Cassell & Co., later becoming its owner. He published studies on Handel, Schubert, and Sullivan, edited Arnold Bennett’s journals, and commissioned Churchill’s A History of the English-Speaking Peoples and The Second World War. Flower’s study on Arthur Sullivan was published in 1927, with input from the composer’s nephew, Herbert Sullivan. It was revised in 1950, It offers insights into his personal and professional relationships, including his collaboration with W.S. Gilbert. The book is valued for its first hand accounts but has been criticised for its selective portrayal of Sullivan’s career.
Arthur Sullivan’s only Symphony, the Irish was premiered at the Crystal Palace on 10 March 1866 to considerable acclaim. Shortly afterwards the composer headed north to Manchester. The following anecdote takes place during 1866.
Shortly after the production of [his] Symphony, Sullivan proceeded to Manchester, whence a proposal had come to him to write the incidental music to a theatrical production on an elaborate scale which was to be made at a local theatre during Christmas week. The journey proved fruitless, but it gave him an experience which he constantly related against himself. He arrived at Manchester on an evening of drizzling rain and drove at once to the theatre. He asked to see the libretto for which his music was required; it had not been written. Then, he insisted, he mut get into immediate touch with the author. This individual, so Sullivan to his surprise was informed, was an amateur of considerable merit, and a lodge-keeper at the local cemetery! A keeper of graves as a collaborator! This was either romance or an absurdity, but the insistence of the theatre people assured him that he had not been brought from London on an errand of madness. So, he would go and see.
He hired a cab and drove for
miles in search of the cemetery. Rain was now coming down in torrents, and the
roads were a flood. It was late at night when he reached the cemetery lodge,
and there seemed to be no other house for miles. Neither were there any lights
in the lodge windows; everyone was in bed. He scrambled out of the cab, groped
to the lodge door in the dark, knocked and waited. After an eternity, a candle
appeared at the bedroom window, and an aged man, wearing a nightcap, put his
head out and volubly cursed Sullivan with well-chosen oaths. Then he came down
and unbolted the door.
Sullivan, wet and not too
pleasantly disposed, went inside. The old man, wearing a short coat over his
nightshirt, and holding up a fluttering candle, asked him brusquely what he
required. In a few words Sullivan explained that he wanted to know something
about the plot of the Christmas piece, for it was important that he should
return to London in the morning. The cemetery keeper listened; his jaw fell; in
a few moments he was quite sure that he had been called out of bed by an
imbecile. Had the intruding fellow driven here in the middle of the night about
a "plot" or a grave? In vain did Sullivan try to push into a
seemingly addled brain that he had come about a "plot" the plot of a
theatrical piece. They jabbered at each other in terms which neither
understood, then Sullivan went out and left him with his candle and nightshirt,
and the melancholy return to Manchester began.
It was not until the next morning
that Sullivan discovered that the cabdriver had driven him to the wrong
cemetery!
Sullivan, Herbert, and Flower, Newman, Sir Arthur Sullivan: His Life, Letters and Diaries, London, Cassel, 1927/1950
The work that Arthur Sullivan produced for the Norwich Festival was the Overture in C In Memoriam (1866). It was premiered on 30 October 1866. It was a sincere tribute to his late father, blending grief with lyrical warmth.
No comments:
Post a Comment