The ''Symphony in E'', first performed on March 10, 1866, was the only
symphony
A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, most often for orchestra. Although the term has had many meanings from its origins in the ancient Greek era, by the late 18th century the word had taken on the meaning com ...
composed by
Arthur Sullivan
Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan (13 May 1842 – 22 November 1900) was an English composer. He is best known for 14 comic opera, operatic Gilbert and Sullivan, collaborations with the dramatist W. S. Gilbert, including ''H.M.S. Pinaf ...
. Since Sullivan's death, it has frequently been called the "Irish" Symphony as it was composed in Ireland, and as a homage to
Mendelssohn's "Scottish Symphony".
The piece was generally well-received at its early performances.
History
Sullivan began work on his symphony in 1863, when he was 21 years old. From holiday in northern Ireland, he wrote to his mother that "as I was jolting home ... through wind and rain on an open
jaunting-car, the whole first movement of a symphony came into my head with a real Irish flavour about it – besides scraps of the other movements." The composer later wrote, "I always meant to call it the 'Irish Symphony', but I modestly refrained, as it was courting comparison with the 'Scotch Symphony'."
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Mendelssohn's Symphony_No_3..html" ;"title="Symphony No. 3 (Mendelssohn)">Symphony No 3.">Symphony No. 3 (Mendelssohn)">Symphony No 3.The title did not appear on the published score until after Sullivan's death, in the
Novello edition of 1915. Sullivan wrote in 1899 to his cousin, the music critic B. W. Findon: "Had I known that
Stanford
Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is considere ...
would name his work an 'Irish Symphony', I think I should have knocked my modesty on the head."
The first performance of the symphony took place at
The Crystal Palace
The Crystal Palace was a cast iron and plate glass structure, originally built in Hyde Park, London, Hyde Park, London, to house the Great Exhibition of 1851. The exhibition took place from 1 May to 15 October 1851, and more than 14,000 exhibit ...
on 10 March 1866, conducted by
August Manns, who had previously conducted the London première of Sullivan's
incidental music
Incidental music is music in a play, television program, radio program, video game, or some other presentation form that is not primarily musical. The term is less frequently applied to film music, with such music being referred to instead as t ...
to
''The Tempest''.
[Jacobs, p. 41] The symphony had its second performance on 11 April at
St James's Hall
St. James's Hall was a concert hall in London that opened on 25 March 1858, designed by architect and artist Owen Jones, who had decorated the interior of the Crystal Palace. It was situated between the Quadrant in Regent Street and Piccadilly, ...
at a concert of the Musical Society of London; the conductor was
Alfred Mellon
Alfred Mellon (7 April 1820 – 24 March 1867) was a British violinist, conductor and composer.
Mellon was born in Birmingham, to a French father. At the age of 12 he joined the band at the Theatre Royal in that town, becoming leader at 1 ...
.
[Burn, Andrew. (2007). Notes to Naxos CD 8.570351 ] On 11 July, it was given a third performance, at what was billed as "Mr Arthur S. Sullivan's Grand Orchestral Concert".
["St. James's Hall", '' The Standard'', 12 July 1866, p. 3] The programme consisted mainly of Sullivan's works, including the overture to ''
The Sapphire Necklace
''The Sapphire Necklace, or the False Heiress'' (completed by 1867, and at least mostly completed by 1864), was the first opera composed by Arthur Sullivan. It was never performed, and most of the music and libretto are now lost.
Background
Af ...
'' and excerpts from ''
The Masque at Kenilworth
''Kenilworth, A Masque of the Days of Queen Elizabeth'' (commonly referred to as "The Masque at Kenilworth"), is a cantata with music by Arthur Sullivan and words by Henry Fothergill Chorley (with an extended Shakespeare quotation) that premier ...
'', conducted by the composer. Among the performers was the popular singer,
Jenny Lind
Johanna Maria "Jenny" Lind (6 October 18202 November 1887) was a Swedish opera singer, often called the "Swedish Nightingale". One of the most highly regarded singers of the 19th century, she performed in soprano roles in opera in Sweden and a ...
, who co-sponsored the concert, sang four musical numbers including two Sullivan songs, and attracted a capacity audience.
[
The symphony was well received, though the music critics, both then and later, observed the influence of other composers. The critic in '']The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...
'' wrote, after the first performance, "The symphony sthe best musical work, if judged only by the largeness of its form and the number of beautiful thoughts it contains, for a long time produced by any English composer. ... Mr Sullivan should abjure Mendelssohn, even Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classical ...
and above all Schumann
Robert Schumann (; 8 June 181029 July 1856) was a German composer, pianist, and influential music critic. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest composers of the Romantic era. Schumann left the study of law, intending to pursue a career a ...
, for a year and a day." In his 1960 study of Sullivan's music Gervase Hughes also detects echoes of Schumann, and of Schubert
Franz Peter Schubert (; 31 January 179719 November 1828) was an Austrian composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras. Despite his short lifetime, Schubert left behind a vast ''oeuvre'', including more than 600 secular vocal wor ...
as well.[Hughes, p. 11] In a 2000 analysis, Andrew Lamb comments that the symphony predates the well known symphonies of Brahms, Tchaikovsky and Dvořák, and concurs with earlier analysts that the principal influences on Sullivan's score were Schubert, Schumann and Mendelssohn. Lamb remarks on the themes for trombones and lower strings in the second movement, which "lend the work an especial solemnity", and finds the general mood of the symphony quite serious. Nonetheless Lamb finds that work "also displays Sullivan at his lightest, above all in the joyous third movement … with its jaunty theme for oboe and delightful interplay between pizzicato strings and bubbling woodwind."[Lamb, Andrew. Notes to Chandos CD 9859 (2000) ] In 2006 the analyst Andrew Burn commented that the finale displays an early example of one of the composer's favourite devices: a melody, first heard on the oboe, is combined in counterpoint with a rhythmic theme in the first violins: "Such a device was to become a hallmark of the composer in the double choruses of his operettas".[
The symphony was performed regularly during Sullivan's lifetime. It received few performances in the twentieth century, but it has been heard more frequently in recent decades and was the major work of the opening concert of the first English Music Festival (broadcast by the ]BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
) in October 2006. Four CD recordings of the piece have been issued, and a new study score edition has been published by a German firm, Musikproduction Jürgen Höflich
vivace e con brio
The playing time is about thirty five minutes (or slightly longer if the exposition repeat is taken in the first movement).
*The ''Andante'' introduction opens with the alternation in octaves of
' motif on the strings (a Mendelssohnian touch).