3-082-102 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

"King Arthur," at the Lyceum: the Queen's Maying in the Whitethorn Wood, 1895. 'Mr. Irving, Mr. Forbes Robertson, Miss Genevieve Ward, and Miss Ellen Terry. Scenery and Costumes designed by Sir Edward Burne-Jones...Sir Arthur Sullivan's new incidental music for Mr. Comyns Carr's new play is of a piece with this musician's former work. It would "compose" admirably, so to say, as in a picture, for a detail among the chief labours of Sullivan in the province of comic opera. We do not mean to imply that such a judgment allows Sullivan to have written the best possible music for the best possible of "King Arthurs"...there seems in this incidental music to be an obviousness and a lack of mystery which...rob the whole of a certain needful dignity. We would not attach too much importance...to what must assuredly be considered as little more than merely an occasional composition; but the fact remains that whatever Sir Arthur Sullivan writes must be considered from a serious and responsible point of view, and must be judged from a somewhat exacting standard. It is...a little difficult, among the distractions of acting, to follow incidental music of any kind with extreme care; and let this proviso...be added as some compensation for faint praise'. From "Illustrated London News", 1895.