Some eminent Victorians: Personal recollections in the world of art and letters

by J. Comyns Carr

It was some little time after the Lyceum production that I became even more closely associated with him in the production of The Beauty Stone. The book was written by Mr. Pinero and myself, and Sir Arthur Sullivan was the composer. During a part of that time he occupied a charming little villa at Beaulieu on the Riviera, and there I stayed with him for six weeks while he was setting some of the more important of the lyrics in the opera.

The near neighbourhood of Monte Carlo presented an element of temptation to Sullivan, who was a born gambler. But he was at the time so hard set upon his work that he announced to me on my arrival his fixed resolve that our visits to the Casino should be strictly limited to two days in the week. Like all born gamblers Arthur had his peculiar superstitions. He could not endure to be watched while he was playing; and if he chanced to catch sight of me anywhere near the table at which he was seated, his resentment found eloquent expression. It was only when I contrived to keep entirely out of sight that I was able to observe him as he sat wholly absorbed in the play. The excitement to which he yielded on these occasions was extraordinary, and the rapidity with which he covered the series of chosen numbers very often outran his own remembrance of what he had done.

I have seen him, as he passed from one table to the other, followed by a friendly croupier carrying a handful of gold which he himself was ignorant he had won. And when the evening closed, and we found ourselves once more in the train that was to take us back to Beaulieu, he would sometimes sink back entirely exhausted with the energy he had expended in his three hours’ traffic in the rooms.

Our life at Beaulieu, wholly delightful as it was—for there never was a host to equal him in simple and graceful hospitality—had nevertheless its humorous aspects. We lived, indeed, a sort of Box and Cox existence. The brisk air and bright climate tempted me to rise early, and I was generally at work on the little terrace outside my room by nine o’clock in the morning. It was Sullivan’s habit, on the other hand, to lie late, and our first meeting of the day occurred only at lunch-time. Sometimes, but not always, he would work a little during the afternoon, but it was only when dinner was over, and we had played a few games of bezique, that he set himself seriously to his task. We parted generally at about eleven, and then Arthur’s musical day began. Withdrawing himself into a little glass conservatory that overlooked the Mediterranean, he would often remain at his desk, scoring and composing, till four or even five o’clock in the morning, and it was only rarely during the labour of composition that he had any need to have recourse to the piano to try over a few notes of the melody he had under treatment.

His actual pen-work when he was engaged in scoring his composition for the orchestra was of surprising neatness and delicacy, and I think it was this part of his task he enjoyed the most. He used to say to me that the invention of melody rarely presented to him any grave difficulty. It flowed naturally, almost spontaneously, when he had once fixed the musical rhythm which he felt the meaning of the words and the chosen metre of the verse rightly demanded. Here he took extraordinary pains to satisfy himself, and it was, I think, this spirit of exacting loyalty to the special quality of each separate lyric that gave to his work its special value in relation to the theatre.

Sullivan was always anxious to gather any hint or suggestion from the writer with whom he was associated. I told him one day that in composing verse that was to be set to music I always had some dumb tune echoing in my brain, and I can recall now his futile endeavours to extract from me even the vaguest idea of what this “unheard melody” might be. Sometimes in a spirit of pure mischief he would see how far he could impose upon my confessed ignorance of the musician’s art. He invited me one day to his rooms in Victoria Street to listen to the musical form he proposed to adopt in setting the final choruses of King Arthur, and when, after playing over what he would himself have described as a “tinpot melody,” he inquired if the result came up to my expectation, the imperturbable gravity of his face entirely deceived me.

“Well, my dear Arthur,” I replied, “if that is what you propose, I can only assume that one of us two is a vulgar fellow, and I suppose I am the culprit.”

And then, with a twinkle in his eye, he said, “Well, perhaps you prefer this,” and proceeded to play the melody he had really composed for the purpose.

Unhappily, during the time that The Beauty Stone was being composed, poor Sullivan was often suffering great physical pain, which sometimes rendered his task difficult and onerous. And yet even then the natural brightness of his disposition constantly asserted itself, and he rarely allowed others to be conscious of what he himself endured. How great was the strain illness cast upon him became painfully apparent during the period of our rehearsals; for, although he never spared himself, it was clear to those who were near him that the cost to himself in nervous exhaustion was often almost more than he could bear.