Memorial day - 55

Today’s memorial is located in the Victoria Embankment Gardens, London; it was erected to the memory of Sir Arthur Sullivan.

In the nineteenth and into the twentieth century there were few more famous names in the entertainment world than Gilbert & Sullivan. Their names are still synonymous with Light Opera.

Gilbert as librettist and Sullivan as composer collaborated in the production of fourteen comic operas. H.M.S. Pinafore (1878), The Pirates of Penzance (1879), The Mikado (1885) and The Gondoliers (1889) are stilled performed today by armature operatic societies. Their productions were as popular and crowd pleasers then, as musicals are today.

Arthur Sullivan was born in London in May 1842. By the age of eight he could play proficiently all the instruments of a band. He studied at the Royal Academy of Music, then at the Felix Mendelssohn College of Music and Theatre in Leipzig. He was an established composer before he joined forces with Gilbert in 1871. There partnership lasted until 1896. As well as operas he composed hymns, the best known being “Onward Christian Soldiers”.

He was knighted in 1883; and died aged 58 in November 1900.

His memorial is the work of Sir George Frampton, R.A., P.R.B.S. (1860 -1928). The most striking feature is the bronze partially clothed figure of a weeping woman. On the left hand side of the base are a lute and theatrical mask, the symbols of music and comedy. Sullivan’s bronze bust looks forward, a moustached Victorian gentleman.

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