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Talk:Arthur Sullivan

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Featured articleArthur Sullivan is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so.
Main Page trophyThis article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on February 12, 2020.
Article milestones
DateProcessResult
October 27, 2007Good article nomineeListed
July 12, 2008Peer reviewReviewed
December 14, 2017Peer reviewReviewed
December 31, 2017Featured article candidatePromoted
December 14, 2017Peer reviewReviewed
Current status: Featured article

Comments[edit]

(moved from former subpage) Decent article but inline cits are required, and the extensive "Works" section should be shunted off elsewhere. Moreschi 18:48, 18 October 2006 (UTC)


GA Review[edit]

  1. Well-written: It is well-written. Even very well-written. The prose occasionally exceeds mere correctness, and has moments of style. "If the musical establishment never quite forgave Sullivan for condescending to write music that was both comic and popular, he was, nevertheless, the nation's de facto composer laureate." Sentences like that have a touch of pizazz.

    It complies with all the WP:MOS guidelines that I know, though I am not the world's leading expert in these matters. In any case, if there are deviations from the guidelines (that I have missed), they do not detract from the overall readability of the article.

  2. It is factually accurate and verifiable. Carefully footnoted. One of the faults I often find in Wikipedia articles is unreferenced quotes. People footnote all kinds of extraneous stuff, and then don't credit their quotes. Gads! But there is none of that here. All the quotes are attributed, as are all the other things that need to be attributed.

    There is the issue of no original research. I have always had a question in my mind about this when it comes to musical analysis. If you say a tune is a hornpipe, or is in the style of Wagner, does that constitute original research? While you footnote the paragraphs where those claims occur, it isambiguous whether the footnote refers to the entire paragraph or only to the last statement of the paragraph. However, I consider the issue moot. I believe that identifying a hornpipe or Wagnerian style does not constitute original research. I mean, if someone else can hear it, anyone can hear it.

  3. It is broad in coverage. It certainly covers everything there is to cover about Arthur Sullivan in a general encyclopedia article, and then some. It is, in fact, longer by far than the recommended length for Wikipedia articles (see Wikipedia:Article size). Article length is not a criterion for good articles; if you try to get FA status for this article, someone will probably ding you on this. I personally don't agree that Wikipedia articles longer than 60 or so KB should be broken up into subarticles (yours is about 80KB). Articles should be as long as they have to be. But reviewers are not supposed to argue with guidelines in their reviews, so I will shut up on this point.

  4. It is neutral. You may think, how is it possible to be biased or argumentative about a topic as arcane as this? Well, just so you should know, I almost had a little edit war over a section of the article on the Große Fuge. In fact, I always thought that the music of Sullivan was vapid and insipid - in fact, that that was part of its charm in the operettas, while his classical works were quite rightly ignored. Reading your article has inspired me to seek out and listen again to Sullivan's symphony, and maybe some other stuff. All of which is simply to say that, in theory, you could have been non-neutral about Sullivan, I suppose. But you weren't.

  5. Stable. Yes, it is stable.

  6. Illustrated. The picture of Fanny Ronalds - where is it from? It is certainly in the public domain, but I would be curious to see more attribution than you included. Also, the photo of the Sullivan bust is really terrible. I have copied it to my computer and photoshopped it a bit, so you can see the features. I will upload it later.

So, by the power invested in me by absolutely nobody, I am passing this article as a GA. --Ravpapa 10:31, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

{{cleanup}}[edit]

I put a {{cleanup}} tag on the article because of excessive use of cquotes (should only be used for pull quotes, see WP:MOSQUOTE). This may seem trivial, but on my monitor/browser there is a fairly huge gap of whitespace around the quote beginning "As regards music...". There are other formatting issues as well, for example the quotes are kinda long... Ling.Nut (talk) 05:29, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

NB, this has been resolved. -- Ssilvers (talk) 23:57, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Some referencing issues[edit]

The following parts of the article are missing references:

  • "But the new work was not a big hit, and Sullivan collaborated on operas only with Gilbert for the next 15 years."
  • The entire section of Ruddygore
  • The paragraph after Ruddygore
  • More needed in the first paragraph of 1.4
  • Second paragraph is unsourced (1.4)
  • Last sentence, 3rd paragraph of 1.4 unsourced.
  • 1.5 needs refs at the ends of paragraphs.
  • 1.6 needs a ref on the first paragraph
  • First paragraph of 2.1 needs one.
  • The last sentences of the final three paragraphs in 2.3 need refs.
  • Second paragraph of 3.5
  • Last sentence of second-to-last paragraph in 3.5
  • Last sentence of first paragraph of 3.6
  • Paragraphs 4 and 6 of 3.6

That looks like all of them. Good luck finding them all.Mitch32(UP) 14:17, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

We never did this, did we? Well, I'll go over it with a fine toothed come in a moment =) Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 14:48, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

London Gazette[edit]

Whilst searching the London Gazette for the official records of Sullivan's state honours, I noticed that the search results (along with some false positives) also include a number of mentions of when Sullivan's music was used (or composed) for Royal occasions. I don't know if any are worth a mention here, maybe the specially composed piece for the opening of the Royal Albert Hall, so I thought I'd just note them here. David Underdown (talk) 14:42, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Hello. I tried to look at these links, but they made my head hurt. Why don't you write a proposed sentence and put it here with the reference, and then we can discuss whether it ought to be inserted in the (already too long) article. Thanks! -- Ssilvers (talk) 15:49, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
Boils down to:
  • "No. 25773". The London Gazette. 5 January 1888., ode composed for the opening of the Imperial Institute (I was wrong when I mentioned the Royal Albert Hall above, I was confused by the mention of what later became the Royal Choral Society).
Thanks. What ode is this referring to? Is it already mentioned somewhere else in the article? If so, we can just add the mention of the Imperial Institute performance. Was it a royal commission? If it was not performed again, I doubt it is notable. But maybe it should be mentioned in the Imperial Institute article, if it's not there already.
  • "No. 25586". The London Gazette. 13 May 1886., an ode "Welcome, welcome, with one voice" for the opening of the Colonial and Indian Exhibition 1886.
See above. Was this used again anywhere? Not sure it's notable....
Thanks for this research, but it is still hard to decide whether any of it is worth adding to the article. Sorry not to be able to help you flesh out this research, but I'm terribly swamped with work. All the best, -- Ssilvers (talk) 16:27, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

I can't currently find the title of the ode that was eprformed at the Imperial Institute, I know I have seen it mentioned somewhere at some point, but I've looked through all the likely places and nothing doing. Probably the individual performances are not notable, but it provides an overally indication of his standing with the Establishment, so might be worth a passing mention. David Underdown (talk) 16:43, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

We do say already that he was friendly with the Prince, and that the queen commissioned certain works. Search the article for the words prince, duke and queen, and then you'll be able to see what is missing. I'm happy to add something if you think it's notable and if we can attach references that support the new info. All the best, -- Ssilvers (talk) 17:16, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Terminology and Classification Issues[edit]

In particular the use of the term "opera" to include all of Sullivan's musical stage works that amounts to wishful thinking. Technically, the Savoy "operas" are operetta due to the use of spoken dialog rather than recitative in the view of many. That might seem like a music snob's quibble but can anyone, apart from Sullivan devotees, really consider a slight musical comedy work such as Cox and Box, or any similar light burlesque, an opera? Sullivan wrote at least one grand opera, Ivanhoe, and it does no favor to the article to pump up Sullivan's output to 23 operas when maybe half of them are of a scale worthy of that term and invites misleading comparisons with composers, such as Verdi, Donizetti, etc who were prolific in even greater number in the genre of full scale grand opera. The article should distinguish the scale and format of Sullivan's musical stage works more clearly. As written today, it reflects a sort of English Euro-envy of musical culture as distinguished opera in England took a long nap from Purcell and Handel until fully revived by Benjamin Britten.

For what it is worth, I regard the Savoy operas not as opera or operetta but as the beginning of a really respectable and intelligent musical theater more akin to the best of later American Broadway theater rather than poor cousins to the great (in scale,weight and vocal power required if not actual merit in some cases) operas of the European tradition. Lorenz Hart regarded them that light regarding Gilbert as a master worthy of study. What they lack in operatic weight they make up and surpass in literary brilliance and comedic edge. But they are not Rigoletto or even Barber of Seville in musical terms even if Sullivan's music borrows from and sometimes satirizes its European counterparts. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jszigeti (talk • contribs) 23:21, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the message. The article states, more than once, that Sullivan's only grand opera is Ivanhoe and that the rest are comic operas. See the "note on terminology" at the top of this page, which notes that the authors called their joint works "operas" (a "nautical opera", a "piratical opera", a "fairy opera" a "Japanese opera", an "original comic opera", etc.). They wished to distinguish their pieces from Continental operetta. The participants of the Gillbert and Sullivan project have agreed to honor the authors' wishes in our terminology, and our WP:Consensus is also supported by virtually all of the writers who have written scholarly books about G&S, including Stedman, Jacobs, Ainger, Bradley, Allen, etc. (see the list of references at the bottom of the article). All the best, -- Ssilvers (talk) 03:58, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Featured Article[edit]

Should it be nominated?----occono (talk) 21:14, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

No. It's got great content, but I think it needs some brushing up before going to FA. I was going to wait until I had made more progress on the various Gilbert and Sullivan operas. Feel free to give me any comments you have on it, though! -- Ssilvers (talk) 21:58, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
I have none, really, I just came to it randomly and I was impressed. But if you plan to nominate it later then no worries.----occono (talk) 22:04, October 2010 (UTC)

In the event that it should be nominated or considered for FA, here are a few points I noted on a pass through of most of the article.

  • The introduction lists several pieces that purport to be "his most critically praised." I have no idea how this was ascertained.
  • In the 1870s section, Sullivan is credited with writing "Onward, Christian Soldiers" twice, in both 1871 and 1872.
  • In general, words like success/successful and profitable/profitably are used excessively and willy-nilly, without much standard or consistency. Most of these ought to be edited out, supported, or replaced with something more descriptive. For instance, the word "success," or variants of it, is used something like 25 times.
  • This is really picayune (but then, FA reviews are supposed to be), but there is no consistent policy within the article as to whether periods and commas appear inside of terminating quotation marks or outside of them.

That's all I have for now. Marc Shepherd (talk) 22:10, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks very much! I have addressed these. -- Ssilvers (talk) 23:58, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Large batch of quotations added and now deleted[edit]

Very interesting batch of quotations recently added, but they seriously disrupt the balance of this article (which has been rated as a Good Article on the Wikipedia scale.) I have deleted accordingly, but I hope the editor in question will consider adding them, suitably referenced, to Wikiquote, where they will be eminently suitable. 217.207.222.178 (talk) 21:48, 15 January 2011 (UTC) Apologies - I was inadvertently not logged in. Tim riley (talk) 21:52, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Tim riley. These quotations would be appropriate in Wikiquote rather than here. This article is already rather long, so new additions should be restricted to only the most important facts about Sullivan and his music. Best regards, -- Ssilvers (talk) 22:06, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
Looking again at the batch of quotations, I think they are really excellent, and mostly little-known. If the original contributor doesn't put them into Wikiquote, I propose to do so myself. They are too good to lose, though inappropriate for the Wikipedia article. Tim riley (talk) 14:07, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

On what scale should Sullivan be evaluated?[edit]

One might well say he was one of the few best composers of comic operas and the best British one. In terms of his total output of them he may rank very near the top internationally, although he did not compose the single best one (Mozart's Marriage of Figaro). But was Sullivan a "great" or even a "fine" composer? The article has a section "Musical quotations and parodies." He "often quoted or imitated... themes and passages" by other composers. Those listed in that section, rearranged in alphabetical order, are Arne, Auber, Bach, Michael Balfe, Bellini, Bizet, Chopin, Donizetti, Flotow, Gounod, Handel, Liszt, Mendelssohn, Schubert, Verdi, Wagner, and William Vincent Wallace. A parody of a well-known piece may add musical humor to that of Gilbert's words and so to the enjoyability of the opera as a whole. Outside of comic operas, however, borrowings have less in their favor. Edward Greenfield in "The Gramophone," February 1969, p. 61, wrote that a theme in the slow movement of Sullivan's Irish Symphony is an "outrageous crib" from Schubert's Unfinished Symphony. Several other composers' influences are also heard in the Irish Symphony. So I propose to do some rewriting to praise Sullivan as he deserves.Marlindale (talk) 22:05, 13 August 2014 (UTC)Marlindale (talk) 22:30, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Interesting addition, but removed as not compliant with WP rules. See WP:LEAD (i) 5 paras is too many and (ii) there should be nothing in the lead not in the main text; see also WP:WEASEL, of which the deleted para also fell foul. Tim riley talk 08:09, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
My main concern was the clause saying Sullivan was "regarded as the finest British composer of the 19th century." I think this raised a serious POV issue (regarded by whom?) and was not substantiated in the main article, so I deleted it. I thought that "fine,finer,finest" was not even the right scale on which to evaluate Sullivan, as I said above in this Talk section. But the previous following sentence in the article, "Sullivan's comic opera style...." I thought was fine and had not deleted it, it was deleted inadvertently I think, in good faith, by Tim riley. I plan to put it back. The rest of my added paragraph, on comparison with Elgar etc., I was not comfortable about myself. Why so much about Elgar in the Sullivan article? I don't mind that being deleted. My thought was that as Elgar's Enigma Variations, his by far most appreciated piece, was premiered in 1899, that could provide a possible argument about who was finest in the 19th century, but now I hope we don't need to get into that detail. Now about "unreferenced," I did provide one specific reference, but also I used a technique of highlighting non-standard phrases which gave links to other WP articles. What I take from the reproof is that I will try not to use that method, using it as by general practice only for names of people, institutions, musical pieces, etc. and not for such backhanded references as I did. I think one can see from my other edits as of Brahms and Dvorak articles that I'm generally scrupulous about references. I also plan to make a minor change in the reference to Queen Victoria I added because the monarchy became more constitutional during her era.Marlindale (talk) 20:56, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

[Left]. I removed the statement about Queen Victoria, which is both obvious and not central to Sullivan's LEAD, and replaced it with the statement that when he died, Sullivan was "regarded as Britain's foremost composer". That is amply supported by the text and notes below. -- Ssilvers (talk) 18:07, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

That's for the best, I think. A definite improvement on the recent changes. Tim riley talk 18:55, 22 August 2014 (UTC)
Although I thought I gave strong arguments against "finest," I think "foremost" of that time is a good way to put it. Marlindale (talk) 03:41, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

What did Sullivan die of?[edit]

What did Sullivan die of? 67.243.186.3 (talk) 16:05, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

As the article says, heart failure. -- Ssilvers (talk) 18:23, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

A few review comments[edit]

I don't think this article will have any trouble at FAC, and I will be happy to support when the time comes. I found a few minor things to note, as follows:

Mendelssohn scholar

  • "Originally intended to spend a year in Leipzig..." - "intending" rather than "intended"?
Well, I think we said "intended" because it was the committee that granted the scholarship that intended it to be one year. Do you still think it ought to be "intending"?
Yes, since it's attached to Sullivan, who seems to be the actor in the sentence. Other words, such as "planning" would do as well. You could possibly recast to make the committee the subject and "intended" the verb, but that seems roundabout. Finetooth (talk) 23:43, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
Redrafted.
  • "Sullivan stayed there for three years" - Delete "there" since "There" starts the next sentence?
Done.
  • "Revised and expanded, it was performed at the Crystal Palace" - I'm not sure whether its formal name is Crystal Palace or The Crystal Palace. If the former, then "the" should not be included in the link; if the latter, then the link should probably include a redirect from the disambiguation page Crystal Palace. Much ado about very little.
Fixed, I think. See if you agree.
Yes. Looks fine. Finetooth (talk) 23:43, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
  • Note 1 opens with a link bump, "The soprano Jenny Lind...". Since the word "soprano" also appears later in the sentence, I think you could safely delete the first instance and link the second to make the link bump go away.
Hmmm. It occurs to me that the sentence was too long. See if you think I fixed it optimally.
Yes, except perhaps "became" instead of "was" in "After Sullivan was the first recipient of the scholarship...". Finetooth (talk) 23:43, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
Done.

Rising composer

  • "In the autumn of 1867, Sullivan travelled with George Grove to Vienna, in search of neglected manuscript scores by Schubert." - Delete the comma after Vienna?
Done.
  • Note 5 says in part, "an early example of critical censure of Sullivan for his accessibility". Maybe add a modifier and say "easy accessibility"?
I think it's probably better as is. I think "accessible" classical music already implies that it is easy to appreciate, understand and enjoy.
OK. Just by way of explanation I'll say that I was reading the text from the peanut gallery point of view and first thought that an accessibility problem meant that critics thought that the work was too highbrow for plebes. Huh? Since I knew this was not true of the comic operas, I re-read the sentence and saw what it meant. Later in the article, the critics' views become quite clear. Finetooth (talk) 23:43, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

1890s

  • "The opera was both a critical failure and did not attract a following, running for only seven weeks." - Delete "both"?
OK, done.
  • "by the Universities of Cambridge (1876) and Oxford (1879)" - Lowercase "universities"?
OK, done.

Leisure and family life

  • "Kate was a chorister who defected to the Comedy Opera Company's rival production of H.M.S. Pinafore where she had the opportunity to play Josephine in 1879." - Insert a comma after Pinafore?
Done!

Knighthood and later years

  • " and in the matter of orchestration our only humorous has let himself run riot" - Is "humorous" the right word in this quotation? A typo maybe?
Tim fixed this.

Other

  • The link checker finds several problems including a small number of dead URLs and missing "subscription required" notes.

That's all I found. Finetooth (talk) 20:25, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

Super! Thanks, Finetooth! What do you think, User:Tim riley, do you agree with all of my changes and responses to Finetooth? -- Ssilvers (talk) 04:42, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
You are welcome. I found remarkably few things to note in such a long and complicated article. I added a couple of replies to your replies above. The "humorous" question is still pending, and I thought I should mention that I made one small change yesterday that perhaps should be reverted. It's the cap M on "Nearer, My God, to Thee" in Note 9. I'm seeing it both ways in different texts, and I don't know what logic might apply. Finetooth (talk) 23:43, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
Thanks, again! -- Ssilvers (talk) 00:23, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

WP:DISINFOBOX[edit]

Per WP:INFOBOX, "The use of infoboxes is neither required nor prohibited for any article. Whether to include an infobox, which infobox to include, and which parts of the infobox to use, is determined through discussion and consensus among the editors at each individual article." While sports and politician bios can benefit from infoboxes, most articles in liberal arts fields do not: "Infoboxes may be particularly unsuited to liberal arts fields when they repeat information already available in the lead section of the article, are misleading or oversimplify the topic for the reader". I disagree with including an infobox in the articles that you templated because: (1) The box would emphasize unimportant factoids stripped of context and lacking nuance, in competition with the WP:LEAD section, which emphasizes and contextualizes the most important facts. (2) Since the most important points in the article are already discussed in the Lead, or adequately discussed in the body of the article, the box would be redundant. (3) It would take up valuable space at the top of the article and hamper the layout and impact of the Lead. (4) Frequent errors creep into infoboxes, as updates are made to the articles but not reflected in the redundant info in the box, and they tend to draw more vandalism and fancruft than other parts of articles. (5) The infobox template creates a block of code at the top of the edit screen that discourages new editors from editing the article. (6) It would discourage readers from reading the text of the article. (7) IBs distract editors from focusing on the content of the article. Instead of improving the article, they spend time working on this repetitive feature and its coding and formatting. See also WP:DISINFOBOX. In addition throughout the articles within the scope of WikiProject G&S, the consensus has been not to have infoboxes, so adding an infobox would degrade the consistency of design throughout these articles. -- Ssilvers (talk) 03:16, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

What's the source for this?[edit]

Sullivan was required to pay Carte a contractual penalty of £3,000 (equivalent to £340,000 in 2019) --The Huhsz (talk) 19:56, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

Both the Jacobs and Ainger books are cited. The page numbers are given, and the full cites are under the sources section. -- Ssilvers (talk) 02:45, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
How do books from 1984 and 2002 come to have inflation data from 2019? --The Huhsz (talk) 10:52, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
The inflation calculation was from an online inflation calculator. Let me check which one, and I'll try to get back to you about it by Friday. -- Ssilvers (talk) 13:06, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
Thanks. I think it's worth noting. The Huhsz (talk) 13:55, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
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