In fact, it aroused considerable controversy, some maintaining that so far from being an advance on, it lacked the admitted promise
of "The Prodigal Son"; while others were equally pronounced in their views as to its superlative merits.
Although subscribing to neither opinion, I cannot but think that the former contained more truth than the latter. That "The Light of the World" contains much that is beautiful is not denied, but that it contains some that nearly verges on the common-place, cannot, I am afraid, but be admitted. It has fallen into desuetude for many years now.
In a short summary of Sir Arthur Sullivan's career, as this must, necessarily be, I have to leave unrecorded much that is both interesting and important.[34] I content myself, therefore, with some reference to those works upon which his fame, so far as serious music is concerned, will chiefly rest.
"The Martyr of Antioch" was produced at the Leeds Festival in 1880. It was an event of particular significance in his life.
The continued successes of his Savoy comic operas, and the popularity gained by his songs, had begun to make a decided effect on the public mind, which was rapidly losing count of the other side of the versatile composer—that of more serious import. It was, then, with no little interest and speculation that the production was awaited.
The result exceeded the most sanguine hopes of his friends and admirers. Its reception was veritably triumphal, and at once re-affirmed
his position as the leading English composer of his time.
Any doubts that might have been felt by the audience assembled on this memorable occasion, were soon dispelled. The splendid chain of choruses with which the work opens—once interrupted by the hauntingly beautiful, and purely original song, "The love-sick damsel"—immediately convinced them, not only that the composer was, in no sense, shorn of his powers as a writer of serious music, but that they had discovered him in a vein of virile strength, of which he had, previously, scarcely given warning.
From that moment, the work was not only assured of success, but, as it progressed, enthusiasm increased to such an extent, that at the conclusion of the finale, to the success of which the magnificent singing of that great artiste, Madame Albani, predominatingly contributed, a scene of excitement occurred that only those who witnessed it could adequately imagine. Of the many numbers that contributed to this result, those that most readily spring to the memory are the strenuous, and, again, highly original "Io Pæan"; the charming "Come, Margarita, come"; and, above all, the one that will probably live, when the others are forgotten, the noble hymn, of the type which Arthur Sullivan may be said to have made his own, and which is so frequently sang on occasions of national mourning, "Brother, thou art gone before us"; of them all, this remains as the grandest monument.