''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 William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...

quotation) that premiered at the Birmingham Festival on 8 September 1864. In 1575, Queen Elizabeth visited Robert Dudley at

Kenilworth Castle Kenilworth Castle is a castle in the town of Kenilworth in Warwickshire, England managed by English Heritage; much of it is still in ruins. The castle was founded during the Norman conquest of England; with development through to the Tudor pe ...

, where he presented her with lavish entertainments over a period of 19 days in an attempt to persuade her to marry him. This piece attempts to recreate the sort of

masque The masque was a form of festive courtly entertainment that flourished in 16th- and early 17th-century Europe, though it was developed earlier in Italy, in forms including the intermedio (a public version of the masque was the pageant). A masq ...

that might have been performed for the queen's pleasure. The text is based partly on the description of the queen's visit in the 1821 novel ''

Kenilworth Kenilworth ( ) is a market town and civil parish in the Warwick District in Warwickshire, England, south-west of Coventry, north of Warwick and north-west of London. It lies on Finham Brook, a tributary of the River Sowe, which joins the ...

'', by

Sir Walter Scott Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832), was a Scottish novelist, poet, playwright and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European and Scottish literature, notably the novels '' Ivanhoe'', '' Rob Roy' ...

and on other contemporary accounts and fiction.

Background

''Kenilworth'' is one of Arthur Sullivan's earliest choral works, coming only three years after he completed his studies. Early in 1862, the critic Henry Fothergill Chorley, who served on the committee that had awarded the Mendlessohn scholarships to Sullivan, had hosted a private performance of Sullivan's incidental music to Shakespeare's '' The Tempest'' at his home, where

George Grove Sir George Grove (13 August 182028 May 1900) was an English engineer and writer on music, known as the founding editor of ''Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians''. Grove was trained as a civil engineer, and successful in that profession, b ...

, at that time Secretary to

The Crystal Palace The Crystal Palace was a cast iron and plate glass structure, originally built in 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 exhibitors from around th ...

, heard the piece. Grove was sufficiently impressed to arrange for a performance of the work at ''The Crystal Palace''Robin Gordon-Powell (Archivist & music librarian of the Sir Arthur Sullivan Society), Preface to the score of ''Kenilworth'', published by The Amber Ring, London, 2002 This piece was a hit and launched Sullivan's reputation. Sullivan and Chorley then began collaborating on songs and other works. In 1863, Sullivan and Chorley were collaborating on an opera, '' The Sapphire Necklace'', that they had hoped would be produced by the Royal Italian Opera House at Covent Garden. Sullivan met the music director of the opera house, Sir Michael Costa, seeking to cultivate a relationship with the important conductor. He expressed his eagerness to learn all that he could about opera and asked to attend rehearsals. Costa hired Sullivan as an organist at Covent Garden. Costa also began to send composing commissions to Sullivan. In 1864, at the recommendation of Costa, who was also chief conductor of the triennial

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1. ...

Musical Festival, Sullivan received a commission to write a cantata for the Festival. At the time, Sullivan and Chorley had submitted ''The Sapphire Necklace'' to the Royal Opera House, but the opera was turned down. Instead, Costa, perhaps in consolation for rejecting the opera, arranged for Chorley to write the libretto for the masque.Shepherd, Marc.
''Sullivan: 'The Masque at Kenilworth' – Music for Royal and National Occasions''
, The Gilbert and Sullivan Discography, 24 December 2003, accessed 2 July 2014 Chorley's libretto draws on the description in the 1821 novel ''

'', by

, of the visit of Queen Elizabeth and her 400-member entourage to

in 1575. The libretto also draws on other contemporary accounts and fiction. Chorley noted in his preface to the libretto that his "fancy was directed" to the subject matter not only for its "local interest" (

is near Birmingham), but because he had long enjoyed Scott's "wondrously musical, but as wondrously simple" description of Elizabeth's arrival for the masque. Chorley does not allude to it, but Michael Costa had composed a ballet on the subject of ''Kenilworth'' in 1831. The 22-year-old Sullivan composed the piece over the summer of 1864 and travelled to Birmingham in early September for the first rehearsal. He conducted the première of the cantata on 8 September 1864, which was generally well received. However, ''

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'' (f ...

'' was disappointed in the young composer's missing so "golden a chance" to provide something of "more dignity" for such a grand event and dismissed the music as merely "trivial prettiness". It noted, however, that had the piece been written for a less exceptional occasion, it "would be welcomed as a very agreeable work, unambitious in plan, unpretending in style, but at the same time lively, tuneful, fresh, and extremely well-written both for voices and instruments.""Birmingham Musical Festival", ''The Times'' review, 12 September 1864, p. 10 After two further performances (at

on 12 November 1864; and by the

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 c ...

Philharmonic Society in 1868), Sullivan withdrew the piece and refused to allow it to be performed. There were also three known complete performances of the masque around the first anniversary of the composer's death and additional performances in 1903 and 1907. The "Shakespeare Duet" and "Brisk Dance" were performed independently, with the composer's permission, on many occasions and continued to be performed well into the 20th century.

Description

''Kenilworth'' is a conjectural reconstruction of one of the

s that might have been performed for the pleasure of Queen Elizabeth on her visit to Robert Dudley at

in 1575. Dudley entertained the Queen for two weeks with pageants and banquets that cost some £1000 per day, presenting diversions and pageants surpassing anything ever before seen in England. The text of ''Kenilworth'' consists of descriptions of various mythical entities, creatures and people joyfully praising Elizabeth, singing and dancing to her after her arrival in Kenilworth on a summer's night. These include the

Lady of the Lake The Lady of the Lake (french: Dame du Lac, Demoiselle du Lac, cy, Arglwyddes y Llyn, kw, Arloedhes an Lynn, br, Itron al Lenn, it, Dama del Lago) is a name or a title used by several either fairy or fairy-like but human enchantresses in the ...

, who rises from the water to greet her, and the ancient Greek poet Arion, who arrives astride a dolphin. A performance of the "summer night" scene from ''

The Merchant of Venice ''The Merchant of Venice'' is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1596 and 1598. A merchant in Venice named Antonio defaults on a large loan provided by a Jewish moneylender, Shylock. Although classified as ...

'' is given, and then the Queen is sung lovingly to sleep. The ''Merchant of Venice'' scene is anachronistic, since Shakespeare was a young boy in 1575, but Chorley notes in his preface that Scott had also anachronistically used Shakespeare material. Chorley's effort was ridiculed as "trivial". In addition, Chorley faced much criticism over a misquote of ''The Merchant of Venice'' in No. 7, "Scene from ''The Merchant of Venice''". Chorley's line reads: "Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubum, / Such harmony is in immortal sounds." Shakespeare wrote "immortal souls". Nevertheless, the young Sullivan's effort showed promise. Its most successful movement was the duet, "How sweet the Moonlight sleeps." The soloists at the premiere were

Helen Lemmens-Sherrington Helen Lemmens-Sherrington (4 October 1834 – 9 May 1906) was an English concert and operatic soprano prominent from the 1850s to the 1880s. Born in northern England, she spent much of her childhood and later life in Belgium, where she studied at ...

( soprano), Elizabeth Annie "Bessie" Palmer (contralto),

Charles Santley Sir Charles Santley (28 February 1834 – 22 September 1922) was an English opera and oratorio singer with a ''bravura''From the Italian verb ''bravare'', to show off. A florid, ostentatious style or a passage of music requiring technical skill ...

( baritone) and William Hayman Cummings (

tenor A tenor is a type of classical male singing voice whose vocal range lies between the countertenor and baritone voice types. It is the highest male chest voice type. The tenor's vocal range extends up to C5. The low extreme for tenors is wide ...

), a last-minute substitution for the ailing

Mario is a character created by Japanese video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto. He is the title character of the ''Mario'' franchise and the mascot of Japanese video game company Nintendo. Mario has appeared in over 200 video games since his cre ...

.Chorley, writing in the ''Athenaeum'', 17 September 1864, p. 378, quoted in ''Henry Fothergill Chorley, Victorian Journalist'' by Robert Terrell Bledsoe. Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998. ''The Times'' particularly praised the performances of Lemmens-Sherrington and Santley

Original soloists

(soprano): Lady of the Lake, Quartet, Jessica * Elizabeth Annie "Bessie" Palmer (contralto): Connecting recitatives, Quartet. * William Hayman Cummings (tenor): Quartet, Lorenzo *

(baritone): Quartet, Arion

List of musical numbers and descriptions

:1. Introduction: A Summer Night - Instrumental :2. "Hark! The Sound that Hails a King" - Contralto solo (Palmer) and chorus ::A soloist hails the arrival of Queen Elizabeth. The chorus then summarizes the entertainments to come and welcomes the queen. :3. Song, "I have slept beneath the water" - The

(Lemmens-Sherrington) ::The Lady of the Lake describes awakening after centuries, to the merry, golden present, and rising to meet the queen. :4. "Let Fauns the cymbal ring" - Quartet (Lemmens-Sherrington, Palmer, Cummings, and Santley) and male chorus of sylvans ::The

Faun The faun (, grc, φαῦνος, ''phaunos'', ) is a half-human and half-goat mythological creature appearing in Greek and Roman mythology. Originally fauns of Roman mythology were spirits (genii) of rustic places, lesser versions of their c ...

s, Sylvans and

Dryad A dryad (; el, Δρυάδες, ''sing''.: ) is a tree nymph or tree spirit in Greek mythology. ''Drys'' (δρῦς) signifies " oak" in Greek, and dryads were originally considered the nymphs of oak trees specifically, but the term has evolved t ...

s welcome

Oriana {{Unreferenced, date=December 2009 Oriana is a given name, primarily of a female, that is widespread in Europe. Variants include ''Orianna'', ''Oriane'' or ''Orianne''. Sometimes ''Orian, Oreste'' or '' Dorian'' may be a male given name or a famil ...

(a nickname for Elizabeth) with music and tribute, and celebrate her bravery and beauty. :5. Slow Dance with a Burthen (Women's Chorus) :6. Song, "I am a ruler on the sea" - Arion (Santley) ::The Greek poet Arion sings of Britain's mastery of the sea and praises the mariners who guard her glorious crown. He says "threatening Spain" could not touch one blade of grass in Britain, as the land itself would rise up against them. :6a. Contralto recitative: "Place for the Queen our show to see, Now speak Immortal Poetry." (Palmer) :7. Scene from ''

'' (Act V, scene i): "How sweet the moonlight sleeps" (Lemmens-Sherrington and Cummings) ::Lorenzo speaks to his new bride, Jessica, comparing the moon and stars in the quiet night to harmony of their souls. He jokingly compares the soundless night to the one when

Troilus Troilus ( or ; grc, Τρωΐλος, Troïlos; la, Troilus) is a legendary character associated with the story of the Trojan War. The first surviving reference to him is in Homer's ''Iliad,'' composed in the late 8th century BCE. In Greek myth ...

committed a romantic act of daring for his lover

Cressida Cressida (; also Criseida, Cresseid or Criseyde) is a character who appears in many Medieval and Renaissance retellings of the story of the Trojan War. She is a Trojan woman, the daughter of Calchas, a Greek seer. She falls in love with Troilus, ...

. Jessica counters in kind, comparing the night to that on which

Thisbe Pyramus and Thisbe are a pair of ill-fated lovers whose story forms part of Ovid's ''Metamorphoses''. The story has since been retold by many authors. Pyramus and Thisbe are two lovers in the city of Babylon who occupy connected houses. Their ...

fled from the shadow of the lion. They agree that, on such a night,

Dido Dido ( ; , ), also known as Elissa ( , ), was the legendary founder and first queen of the Phoenician city-state of Carthage (located in modern Tunisia), in 814 BC. In most accounts, she was the queen of the Phoenician city-state of Tyre (t ...

stood upon the sea banks and waved for her love to return to

Carthage Carthage was the capital city of Ancient Carthage, on the eastern side of the Lake of Tunis in what is now Tunisia. Carthage was one of the most important trading hubs of the Ancient Mediterranean and one of the most affluent cities of the cla ...

. :8. A Brisk Dance - Instrumental :9. Contralto solo and Chorus: "After banquet, play, and riot" (Palmer)... "Sleep, great Queen!" (Chorus) ::Now that the banquet and play are over, it is time for the queen to sleep. The masque is not yet ended, and the next day will bring new delights. The people bless and hail the queen in a happy, but subdued ending.

Recordings

The piece has received two complete professional recordings. The first, in 1999, was on a disk called ''Sullivan: 'The Masque at Kenilworth' – Music for Royal and National Occasions'', by the Oxford Company of Musicians and Oxford Pro Musica Singers, conducted by Michael Smedley (Symposium CD 1247). A second recording, by Victorian Opera Northwest, conducted by Richard Bonynge, was released in 2014 (Dutton Vocalion CDLX 7310). A review notes that ''Kenilworth'' and its companion piece, '' On Shore and Sea'', "emerge in good heart under veteran Richard Bonynge's life-ebullient conviction. The singers, solo and ensemble and orchestra deliver fully satisfactory results ... and more."Barnett, Rob
Review: "On Shore and Sea" and "Kenilworth"
''MusicWeb International'', September 14, 2014

Notes

References

External links

at The Gilbert and Sullivan Archive

at The Gilbert and Sullivan Discography
Excerpt from ''Scribner's Monthly'' magazine that contains a review (at p. 907) of the work
* ttps://www.gsarchive.net/other_sullivan/kenilworth/times1864b.html Review from London performance in ''The Times'', 14 November 1864 {{DEFAULTSORT:Masque at Kenilworth Compositions by Arthur Sullivan 1864 compositions