|
''The Golden Legend'' is a cantata by Arthur Sullivan with libretto by Joseph Bennett, based on the 1851 poem of the same name by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The piece premiered at the triennial Leeds Music Festival. At least 17 performances of the cantata were given in Britain during the first year after its premiere in October 1886, and during Sullivan's lifetime it was widely considered his greatest and most successful work of serious music. Indeed, outside of the comic operas with W. S. Gilbert, this cantata was widely regarded as Sullivan's most successful large-scale composition. A few days after the first performance, Gilbert wrote to Sullivan, "I congratulate you heartily on the success of the Cantata which appears from all accounts to be the biggest thing you've done."〔Baily, p. 290〕 In May 1888, there was a performance of the work at the Royal Albert Hall by command of Queen Victoria. She sent for Sullivan after the performance and said, "At last I have heard ''The Golden Legend'', Sir Arthur ... You ought to write a grand opera – you would do it so well."〔Sullivan's diary for 8 May 1888, ''quoted'' in Baily, p. 312〕 Numerous amateur choral societies performed the work, and at one point the composer declared a moratorium on its performance, fearing that it was becoming over-exposed. After Sullivan's death there was a steady decline in the frequency of performances of ''The Golden Legend'', in common with all of his serious compositions, and the arrival of a new generation of composers, beginning with Edward Elgar, brought fresh new choral and symphonic works to the British musical scene that crowded out Romantic music. In recent decades, however, there has been a significant revival of interest in Sullivan's compositions, including ''The Golden Legend''.〔Gordon-Powell, ''passim''〕 ==Background== Sullivan had been associated with the prestigious triennial Leeds Music Festival, both as conductor and composer, since 1880, when his choral work ''The Martyr of Antioch'' had its premiere at Leeds Town Hall. By 1886, Sullivan was serving as the Leeds Festival's musical director for the third time, and the Festival Committee had commissioned him to compose a new choral work. In January 1886, having settled on his subject, but having tried and failed to arrange a libretto himself, he asked Joseph Bennett to prepare the libretto〔Gordon-Powell, p. 11〕 based on Longfellow's epic poem ''The Golden Legend''.〔''Glasgow Herald'', 1 February 1886〕〔Young, p. 221〕 Only weeks before Sullivan began composing ''The Golden Legend'' in the spring of 1886, Franz Liszt visited London.〔Young pp. 145–46〕 Sullivan had met Liszt many years earlier in Leipzig, when Sullivan was a student there,〔Young, pp.19–20〕 and he now escorted the older composer to functions given in his honour. During this visit, Liszt's music was heard in London, including his sacred cantata, ''The Legend of St Elisabeth''.〔Jacobs (1984), pp. 232–33〕〔 Liszt had, in 1874, set the prologue of ''The Golden Legend'' as ''Die Glocken des Strassburger Münsters'', and some commentators assert that the influence of Liszt, and particularly of these two works, is discernible in Sullivan's cantata.〔Silverman, Richard S. ("Longfellow, Liszt and Sullivan" ), ''The Musical Review, XXXVI (1975)'', reproduced at ''Deutsche Sullivan Gesellschaft'', accessed 25 October 2012〕〔Young, p. 221; Burton, Nigel. ("100 Years of a Legend", ) ''The Musical Times'', 1 October 1986 pp. 554–57〕 With ''The Mikado'' drawing large audiences in London and New York, Sullivan began composing ''The Golden Legend'' in Yorktown, Camberley, England, on 24 April 1886, and rehearsals began on 10 September 1886.〔(Site includes information about the background and score )〕 Like Sullivan's other Leeds Festival pieces, such as ''The Martyr of Antioch'', the work was presented on a grand scale, with 325 voices and 120 orchestra players.〔Gordon-Powell, p. 21; later performances sometimes employed even larger forces. See Gordon-Powell, pp. 24 and 37, and ("Worcester's Music Festival: Sullivan's Cantata, ''The Golden Legend'', Admirably Executed" ), ''The New York Times'', September 26, 1900, p. 6〕 In addition to the usual orchestra instruments, Sullivan augmented the woodwind section with piccolos, cor anglais, bass clarinet and contrabassoon, cornets in addition to trumpets, and included prominent parts for bells, harp and organ.〔Sullivan, Arthur. (''The Golden Legend'' ), Novello and Company, London, 1886, accessed at IMSLP website on 28 October 2012〕 The festival was held 13–16 October 1886, and the premiere of ''The Golden Legend'' took place on Saturday, 16 October 1886; its success with audiences and critics alike was immediate.〔Gordon-Powell, pp. 19–20〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「The Golden Legend (cantata)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|