Quote Reaction: George Bernard Shaw about Arthur Sullivan

Another interesting quote about Sullivan:

"Goss and Bennett…trained him to make Europe yawn; and he took advantage of their training to make London and New York laugh and whistle."

This quote is from celebrated playwright George Bernard Shaw, who was a regular attendee of G&S shows. He attended many, and was a great admirer of Sullivan's music for the penultimate Savoy Opera, Utopia, Limited, where he expressed that he enjoyed the music more than in any preceding G&S show.  In this quote, Shaw is referring to two of Sullivan's teachers:  John Goss and William Sterndale Bennett.  Bennett in particular should be noted, as not only did his pupils include Sullivan, but also Sir Hubert Parry.  Parry's conservative compositional style could also be said to make Europe yawn.  It certainly can make me yawn.  However, Parry could NOT be said "to make London and New York laugh and whistle".  While Parry was certainly admired by many of his contemporaries, and younger composers such as Elgar, he did not have the ability to entertain the way that Sullivan did.

Throughout musical history, comic themes and works have, by and large, been relegated to lesser artistic value than their serious counterparts.  Parodists are deemed less accomplished than 'serious composers' in many circles.  However, I am a huge fan of parody, and especially admire intelligent parody.  That's one thing that Sullivan was:  an intelligent, tasteful parodist.  He understood bel canto operatic techniques to the degree that he could parody the La Sonnambula sextet with his "A nice dilemma" in Trial by Jury.  However, I do not believe that this is a 'lesser' quality of composition just because it's parody.  For further examples of quality parody, just look at P.D.Q. Bach (one of my all-time favorite parodists).  There is a degree of compositional genius to take an existing work and alter it.  One of my favorite examples is "Eine kleine nichtmusik" (A little not-music).  It can be heard here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enT9oAE0TxM

The insertion of so many other tunes, some by Mozart and many by others, into such a brilliant work as 'Eine kleine nachtmusik' requires an advanced and complex compositional understanding, just like what was possessed by Sullivan.