The Martyr of Antioch
Encyclopedia
Oratorio
An oratorio is a large musical composition including an orchestra, a choir, and soloists. Like an opera, an oratorio includes the use of a choir, soloists, an ensemble, various distinguishable characters, and arias...
(originally described as "A Sacred Musical Drama") by the English composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
Arthur Sullivan
Arthur Sullivan
Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan MVO was an English composer of Irish and Italian ancestry. He is best known for his series of 14 operatic collaborations with the dramatist W. S. Gilbert, including such enduring works as H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado...
. It was first performed on 15 October 1880 at the triennial Leeds Music Festival
Leeds Festival (classical music)
The Leeds Festival was a classical music festival which took place between 1858 and 1985 in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England.The first festival celebrated the opening of Leeds Town Hall by Queen Victoria on 7 September 1858...
, having been composed specifically for that event. It formed the first half of the programme, followed by a performance of Beethoven's
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
Mass in C
Mass in C major (Beethoven)
Ludwig van Beethoven wrote his Mass in C major, Op. 86, to a commission from Prince Nikolaus Esterházy II in 1807. In fulfilling this commission, Beethoven was extending a tradition established by Joseph Haydn, who following his return from England in 1795 had composed one mass per year for the...
and Schubert's
Franz Schubert
Franz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer.Although he died at an early age, Schubert was tremendously prolific. He wrote some 600 Lieder, nine symphonies , liturgical music, operas, some incidental music, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music...
Song of Miriam in the second half. Sullivan was musical director of the Leeds Festival in 1880 and conducted the performance.
The Martyr of Antioch is based on the 1822 epic poem by Henry Hart Milman
Henry Hart Milman
The Very Reverend Henry Hart Milman was an English historian and ecclesiastic.He was born in London, the third son of Sir Francis Milman, 1st Baronet, physician to King George III . Educated at Eton and at Brasenose College, Oxford, his university career was brilliant...
(the Dean of St. Paul's) concerning the martyrdom of St. Margaret of Antioch
Margaret the Virgin
Margaret the Virgin, also known as Margaret of Antioch , virgin and martyr, is celebrated as a saint by the Roman Catholic and Anglican Churches on July 20; and on July 17 in the Orthodox Church. Her historical existence has been questioned; she was declared apocryphal by Pope Gelasius I in 494,...
in the 3rd century. The libretto was adapted for the occasion by Sullivan's friend and collaborator, the librettist W. S. Gilbert
W. S. Gilbert
Sir William Schwenck Gilbert was an English dramatist, librettist, poet and illustrator best known for his fourteen comic operas produced in collaboration with the composer Sir Arthur Sullivan, of which the most famous include H.M.S...
. Their fifth opera, The Pirates of Penzance
The Pirates of Penzance
The Pirates of Penzance; or, The Slave of Duty is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. The opera's official premiere was at the Fifth Avenue Theatre in New York City on 31 December 1879, where the show was well received by both audiences...
, had premiered in London earlier that year.
Like many of Sullivan's large-scale choral works, Martyr is theatrical in conception and was even presented as an opera by the Carl Rosa Opera Company
Carl Rosa Opera Company
The Carl Rosa Opera Company was founded in 1873 by Carl August Nicholas Rosa, a German-born musical impresario, to present opera in English in London and the British provinces. The company survived Rosa's death in 1889, and continued to present opera in English on tour until 1960, when it was...
in 1898. At the Leeds Festival of 1886, Sullivan would premiere an even more successful choral work, The Golden Legend.
Martyr is rarely performed today, though two recordings are available. A professional recording was made at the International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival
International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival
The International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival is held every summer at the Opera House in Buxton, Derbyshire, England. The three-week Festival of Gilbert and Sullivan performances and fringe events attracts thousands of visitors, including performers, supporters, and G&S enthusiasts from all...
in 2000, and an amateur recording was issued by The Sir Arthur Sullivan Society in the 1980s. In addition, various selections from the work have been recorded over the past few decades. During much of the 20th century, Sullivan's serious classical compositions were overshadowed by the Savoy opera
Savoy opera
The Savoy Operas denote a style of comic opera that developed in Victorian England in the late 19th century, with W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan as the original and most successful practitioners. The name is derived from the Savoy Theatre, which impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte built to house...
s, but more recently, revived interest in these works has led to recordings and more frequent performances.
Background
On 2 January 1878, the secretary of the triennial Leeds Music FestivalLeeds Festival (classical music)
The Leeds Festival was a classical music festival which took place between 1858 and 1985 in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England.The first festival celebrated the opening of Leeds Town Hall by Queen Victoria on 7 September 1858...
's Provisional Committee wrote to Sullivan to encourage him to accept the committee's invitation to compose an oratorio for the 1880 Leeds Festival: "I need hardly tell you with what completeness, force, and exceptional choral power we should perform your work, for our recent production of Macfarren's
George Macfarren
George Macfarren was a playwright and the father of composer George Alexander Macfarren. Macfarren's first play, Ah! What a Pity, or, The Dark Knight and the Fair Lady, was produced on 28 September 1818 at the English Opera House; for the next several decades, a Macfarren play was produced...
Joseph will be fresh in your memory, if you read or heard the universal praise bestowed upon the Leeds Festival Performance." Sullivan was in Nice, France at the time, where he was trying to recover from illness. Upon his return in March, Sullivan answered that he could compose a shorter piece of perhaps an hour and a half, but not a full-length oratorio. The committee accepted Sullivan's offer. Despite all of Sullivan's protestations over the years, his reluctance to compose a full-length oratorio upon more than two years' notice casts some doubt on Sullivan's willingness to devote himself to serious composition. As historian Michael Ainger noted, "He was still only thirty-five, but most of his serious work already lay behind him."
At first, Sullivan intended to prepare a libretto himself based on the biblical David and Jonathan story. After struggling with this for a while, Sullian accepted the advice and assistance of Gilbert and selected the Milman poem, The Martyr of Antioch, as a subject. Nevertheless, when a suggestion was made that, in view of the economic and political situation in England, the Festival be postponed for a year, Sullivan expressed approval of that idea in a letter dated June 30, 1879:
- If you carry out the idea of postponing the Leeds Festival till 1881, it will be a very great relief to me and a weight off my mind, because, in consequence of my approaching visit to America (where Gilbert and Sullivan would premiere The Pirates of PenzanceThe Pirates of PenzanceThe Pirates of Penzance; or, The Slave of Duty is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. The opera's official premiere was at the Fifth Avenue Theatre in New York City on 31 December 1879, where the show was well received by both audiences...
), I should have very little time to write for the next six months, and I have been seriously perplexed how to manage it.
Ultimately, however, the festival was not postponed. Gilbert arranged, cut, and in part re-wrote Milman's poem to make it into a libretto suitable for the work. Dean Milman's sons authorized Sullivan to say that the alterations made to adapt the poem to musical requirements had been made with judgment and good taste, and in complete accordance with the spirit of the original work.http://math.boisestate.edu/GaS/other_sullivan/martyr/yp_review.html Sullivan acknowledged Gilbert's contributions in his preface to Martyr: "To his friend, Mr. W. S. Gilbert, is due the change which in one or two cases (marked with an asterisk [numbers 2, 8, and 10]) has been necessary from blank verse to rhyme; and for these and many valuable suggestions, he returns Mr. Gilbert his warm acknowledgements." For his assistance, Sullivan gave Gilbert a silver cup inscribed "W.S. Gilbert from his friend Arthur Sullivan. Leeds Festival 1880. The Martyr of Antioch." In return, Gilbert wrote to Sullivan on 3 December:
- Dear Sullivan, It always seemed to me that my particularly humble services in connection with the Leeds Festival had received far more than their meed of acknowledgement in your preamble to the libretto - and it most certainly never occurred to me to look for any other reward than the honour of being associated, however remotely and unworthily, in a success which, I suppose, will endure until music itself shall die. Pray believe that of the many substantial advantages that have resulted to me from our association, this last is, and always will be, the most highly prized."http://math.boisestate.edu/GaS/other_sullivan/martyr/gilbert.html
In January 1880, the festival committee, after considering other conductors, asked Sullivan to conduct the Leeds Festival, which was to run from 13 to 16 October. This was a popular choice, as one columnist wrote, "...for an English Festival we are to have an English conductor. Too long have we in this country bowed down to foreign talent, even when it has been far inferior to English talent." When Sullivan stood before the festival chorus of 306 voices for his first rehearsal in Leeds on June 4, 1880, he was greeted with cheers and applause by the chorus. On August 31, Sullivan first rehearsed The Martyr of Antioch at Leeds. He outlined the narrative of the new work to the chorus before proceeding with the rehearsal, which was reported in a local newspaper:
- [T]he warm praise that the composer-conductor bestowed on the singers at the conclusion of the rehearsal was well deserved.... These pleasant congratulations were not all on one side, for after several of the choruses the vocalists manifested their appreciation of the composer's success and talent.http://math.boisestate.edu/GaS/other_sullivan/martyr/conductor.html
The performance
The performance of The Martyr of Antioch at the festival under Sullivan's baton earned praise, and he was asked to conduct the next six festivals.http://math.boisestate.edu/GaS/other_sullivan/martyr/conductor.html The Leeds Mercury wrote on October 16, 1880:
- [T]he cheers which greeted the arrival of Mr. Sullivan were renewed with still more vigour and enthusiasm at the close of his new work. The masculine members of the chorus hailed him with a hearty Yorkshire "hooray", while the ladies waved their handkerchiefs in token of congratulation. The whole assemblage, indeed, joined in a hearty tribute of praise.... the strength of The Martyr of Antioch lies in its beautiful Pagan choruses, so full of character and colour; in the first and last airs of Margarita...; in the Funeral Music of the Christians; in the love music of Olybius; and, with reference to the entire work, in charmingly varied and appropriately coloured orchestration.... the dramatic portions of the Cantata... are inferior in treatment, and consequently in result, to those of a lyrical nature. Hence a comparative want of effect in the scene between Margarita and her father, and between the same person and her lover, when revelation is made of a change of faith, meaning nothing less than death to the convert.... This opinion, however, is based upon purely dramatic considerations. Regarding the situation from a musical point of view, there is nothing in the work we would willingly have sacrificed to make room for dramatic expansion.... A word is certainly called for by Mr. Sullivan's orchestrations. Few living musicians know better than our composer how to employ the resources of instrumentation... He uses the orchestra, as not abusing it, charming attentive ears by touches of delicate fancy in form and pleasing cultured taste by a harmony of colour.... All this the scoring of The Martyr of Antioch proves beyond dispute. It never wearies by sameness or repels by eccentricity. It is never presumptuous in forcing its way unduly to the front, and it serves to curtain the general interest of the work without distracting attention from points on which attention should be fixed....http://math.boisestate.edu/GaS/other_sullivan/martyr/mercury.html
Critics agreed that the music had much to admire, but the work failed to achieve sufficient dramatic effect. http://math.boisestate.edu/GaS/other_sullivan/martyr/other_reviews.html
Characters
Heathens:- Olybius, the Roman Prefect (tenorTenorThe tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...
) - Callias, the Priest of ApolloApolloApollo is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in Greek and Roman mythology...
(baritoneBaritoneBaritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...
) - Julia (contraltoContraltoContralto is the deepest female classical singing voice, with the lowest tessitura, falling between tenor and mezzo-soprano. It typically ranges between the F below middle C to the second G above middle C , although at the extremes some voices can reach the E below middle C or the second B above...
) - Maidens and Youths, Worshippers of the Sun
Christians:
- Fabius, Bishop of Antioch (bass)
- Margarita, daughter of Callias (sopranoSopranoA soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...
) - The Christian Congregation.
Synopsis
The action of the piece is laid at Antioch, in Syria, in the latter part of the third century.Olybius is in love with Margarita, and she returned his love. This, however, was in her heathen days. She is now a Christian, and with her conversion, of which both her lover and her father are ignorant, she, although still not indifferent to him, rejects all idea of union with a heathen. The chorus of sun-worshippers gather preliminary to a solemn sacrifice. The Prefect calls for Margarita to take her accustomed place and lead the worship. During her non-appearance, the Priest charges him with lukewarmness in the cause of Apollo, and he avows his firm intention to put all Christians to death.
Later, in the Christian cemetery, where one of the brethren is buried, a hymn is sung over him. After the funeral, Margarita remains behind and pours forth her feelings in adoration of the Saviour. Her father finds her thus employed, and learns for the first time of her conversion. Next, in the palace of the Prefect, the maidens of Apollo sing their evening song. Olybius and Margarita are left together; he begins his old endearments, and dilates on the glories which will be hers when they are united. She then confesses that she is a Christian; he curses her religion, and she leaves him for prison.
Finally, outside the prison of the Christians, on the road to the Temple of Apollo, the maidens of Daphne chant the glories of the god, while from within the prison are heard the more solemn and determined strains of the Christians. Margarita is brought forward and required to make her choice. She proclaims her faith in Christ. Her lover and her father urge her to retract, but in vain; and she dies with the words of rapture on her lips:
- The Christ, the Christ, commands me to his home;
- Jesus, Redeemer, Lord, I come! I come! I come!
Structure of the Oratorio
Scene I – The Front of the Temple of Apollo- Introduction
- No. 1. CHORUS: "Lord of the Golden Day"
- No. 2. SOLO: (Callias) "Break off the Hymn"; ARIA: (Olybius): "Come Margarita, Come"
- No. 3. DUET: (Olybius & Callias) "Great Olybius"
- No. 4. CHORUS: "Long Live the Christian Scourge"
Scene II – The Burial Place of the Christians - Night
- Organ Solo
- No. 5. FUNERAL ANTHEM: "Brother, thou art gone before us"
- No. 6. SOLO: (Fabius) "Brother, thou slumberest"
- No. 7. SOLO RECIT. & HYMN: (Margarita) "Yet Once Again"
- No. 8. DUET: (Margarita & Callias) "My Own, My Loved, My Beauteous Child"
Scene III – The Palace of the Prefect
- No. 9. CHORUS: (Evening Song of the Maidens) "Come Away with Willing Feet"
- No. 10. RECIT. & AIR: (Olybius) "Sweet Margarita, Give Me Thy Hand"
- No. 11. DUET: (Margarita & Olybius) "Oh Hear Me Olybius"
Scene IV – The Temple of Apollo
- No. 12. CHORUS: "Now Glory to the God Who Breaks"
- No. 13. SOLO: (Julia with Chorus) "Io Paean!"
- No. 14. SCENE: (Margarita, Julia, Olybius & Callias with Chorus) "Great is Olybius"
- No. 15. QUARTET: (Margarita, Julia, Olybius & Callias): "Have Mercy Unrelenting Heav'n"
- No. 16. FINALE: "The Hour of Mercy's O'er"
External links
- Web page devoted to Martyr at the Gilbert and Sullivan Archive
- Martyr at the Gilbert and Sullivan Discography
- Links to Martyr Midi files
- Information about the 2000 professional recording of Martyr
- Original review in The Times, 16 October 1880