'Thespis' (1871) first brought him into partnership with Mr.
Gilbert, a partnership which was further cemented by 'Trial by Jury'
(1875). It was 'Trial by Jury' that opened the eyes of connoisseurs to
the possibilities lying within the grasp of these two young men, whose
combined talents had produced a work so entirely without precedent in
the history of English or indeed of any music. The promise of 'Trial by
Jury' was amply borne out by 'The Sorcerer' (1877), which remains in the
opinion of many the best of the whole series of Gilbert and Sullivan
operas--but indeed there is hardly one of them that has not at one time
or another been preferred above its fellows by expert opinion. 'The
Sorcerer' naturally gave Sullivan more scope than 'Trial by Jury.' Here
for the first time he showed what he could do in what may be called his
old English vein, in reproduction of the graceful dance measures of old
time, and in imitations of Elizabethan madrigals so fresh and tuneful
that they seem less the resuscitation of a style long dead than the
creation of an entirely new art-form. In a different vein was the
burlesque incantation, a masterpiece of musical humour, in which the
very essence of Mr. Gilbert's strange topsy-turvydom seems transmuted
into sound.
In 'H.M.S. Pinafore' (1878) Sullivan scored his first great popular
success. 'The Sorcerer' had appealed to the few; 'Pinafore' carried the
masses by storm.
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