[Speech of Sir Arthur Sullivan at the annual banquet of the Royal
Academy, May 2, 1891. Sir Frederic Leighton, President of the
Academy, occupied the chair. "In response for Music," said the
President, "I shall call on a man whose brilliant and many-sided
gifts are not honored in his own country alone, and who has
gathered laurels with full hands in every field of musical
achievement--my old friend, Sir Arthur Sullivan."]
YOUR ROYAL HIGHNESS, MY LORDS AND GENTLEMEN: It is gratifying
to find that at the great representative art-gathering of the year the
sister arts are now receiving at the hands of the painters and sculptors
of the United Kingdom that compliment to which their members are justly
entitled. Art is a commonwealth in which all the component estates hold
an equal position, and it has been reserved for you, sir, under your
distinguished presidency, to give full and honorable recognition to this
important fact. You have done so in those terms of delicate, subtle
compliment, which whilst displaying the touch of the master, also bear
the impress of genuine sympathy, by calling upon my friend Mr. Irving,
and myself, as representatives of the drama and of music, to return
thanks for those branches of art to which our lives' efforts have been
devoted.
I may add, speaking for my own art, that there is a singular
appropriateness that this compliment to Music should be paid by the
artist whose brain has conceived and whose hand depicted a most
enchanting "Music Lesson." You, sir, have touched with eloquence and
feeling upon some of the tenderer attributes of music; I would with your
permission, call attention to another--namely, its power and influence
on popular sentiment; for of all the arts I think Music has the most
mighty, universal, and immediate effect. ["Hear! hear!"] I know there
are many educated and intelligent people who, absorbed in commerce,
politics, and other pursuits, think that music is a mere family
pastime--an ear-gratifying enjoyment. Great popularity has its drawbacks
as well as its advantages, and there is no doubt that the widespread,
instantaneous appreciation and popularity of melody has detracted
somewhat from the proper recognition of the higher and graver attributes
of music. But that music is a power and has influenced humanity with
dynamic force in politics, religion, peace, and war, no one can gainsay.
Who can deny the effect in great crises of the world's history of the
Lutheran Chorale, "Ein' feste Burg," which roused the enthusiasm of
whole towns and cities and caused them to embrace the reformed faith en
masse--of the "Ça ira," with its ghastly association of tumbril and
guillotine, and of the still more powerful "Marseillaise?" These three
tunes alone have been largely instrumental in varying the course of
history. [Cheers.]
Amongst our own people, no one who has visited the Greater Britain
beyond the seas but must be alive to the depth of feeling stirred by the
first bar of "God Save the Queen." It is not too much to say that this
air has done more than any other single agency to consolidate the
national sentiment which forms the basis of our world-wide Empire.
[Cheers.] But, sir, my duty is not to deliver a dissertation on music,
my duty is to thank you for the offering and the acceptation of this
toast, which I do most sincerely.
With regard to the more than generous terms in which you, sir, have
alluded to my humble individuality, I need not say how deeply I feel the
spirit in which they were spoken. This much I would add--that highly as
I value your kindly utterances, I count still more highly the fact that
I should have been selected by you to respond for Music, whose dignity
and whose progress in England are so near and dear to me at heart.
[Cheers.]