The Masque at Kenilworth

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Queen Elizabeth I
Queen Elizabeth I

Kenilworth, A Masque of the Days of Queen Elizabeth (commonly referred to as "The Masque at Kenilworth"), is a cantata with music by Arthur Sullivan and words by Henry Fothergill Chorley (with an extended Shakespeare quotation) that premiered at the Birmingham Festival on 8 September 1864.

In 1575, Queen Elizabeth visited Robert Dudley at Kenilworth Castle, where he presented her with lavish entertainments over a period of several weeks. This piece attempts to recreate the sort of masque that might have been performed for the queen's pleasure. The text is based partly on the description of the queen's visit in the 1821 novel Kenilworth, by Sir Walter Scott and on other contemporary accounts and fiction.

Contents

[edit] Background

Kenilworth is one of Sullivan's earliest choral works, coming only three years after he completed his studies. Early in 1862, Chorley had hosted a private performance of Sullivan's incidental music to Shakespeare's The Tempest at his home, where George Grove, at that time Secretary to The Crystal Palace, heard the piece. Grove was sufficiently impressed to arrange for a performance of the work at The Crystal Palace[1] This piece was a hit and launched Sullivan's reputation.

In 1864, at the recommendation by Sir Michael Costa, chief conductor of the triennial Birmingham Musical Festival, Sullivan received a commission to write a cantata for the Festival. At the time, Sullivan and Chorley had been collaborating on an opera, The Sapphire Necklace, that they had hoped would be produced by the Royal Italian Opera at Covent Garden, but the opera was turned down. Instead, Costa, also Covent Garden's musical director, perhaps in consolation for rejecting the opera, arranged for Chorley to write the libretto.

[edit] Description

Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester
Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester

Kenilworth is a conjectural reconstruction of one of the masques that might have been performed for the pleasure of Queen Elizabeth on her visit to Robert Dudley at Kenilworth Castle in 1575.[2] Dudley entertained the Queen with pageants and banquets that cost some £1000 per day, presenting diversions and pageants surpassing anything ever before seen in England.[1]

The text of Kenilworth consists of descriptions of masses of mythical entities joyfully praising Elizabeth, singing and dancing to her. The Lady of the Lake rises from the water to greet her, and the ancient Greek poet Arion, astride a dolphin.[3] A performance of a scene from The Merchant of Venice is given, and then the Queen is sung lovingly to sleep.[4] Chorley's libretto draws on the description of the queen's visit in the 1821 novel Kenilworth, by Sir Walter Scott, as Chorley's preface to the text indicates. Chorley's libretto also draws on other contemporary accounts and fiction.[1]

Nevertheless, the young Sullivan's effort showed promise.[5][6] Its most successful movement was the duet, "How sweet the Moonlight sleeps." However, it had only a small number of performances before virtually disappearing.[7] The soloists at the premiere were Helen Lemmens-Sherrington (soprano), Elizabeth Annie "Bessie" Palmer (contralto),[8] Charles Santley (baritone) and William Hayman Cummings (tenor), a last-minute substitution for the ailing Mario.[9] After two further performances, Sullivan withdrew the piece and refused to allow it to be performed, although it was performed a few more times after his death.[1] The "Shakespeare Duet" and "Brisk Dance" were performed independently, with the composer's permission, on many occasions well into the 20th century.[1]

[edit] Original soloists

  • Helen Lemmens-Sherrington (soprano): Lady of the Lake, Quartet, Jessica
  • Elizabeth Annie "Bessie" Palmer (contralto): Connecting recitatives, Quartet.
  • William Hayman Cummings (tenor): Quartet, Lorenzo
  • Charles Santley (baritone): Quartet, Arion[10]

[edit] List of musical numbers and descriptions

Sullivan in about 1870
Sullivan in about 1870
1. Introduction: A Summer Night - Instrumental
2. "Hark! The Sound that Hails a King" - Contralto solo (Palmer) and chorus
A soloist hails the arrival of Queen Elizabeth. The chorus then summarizes the entertainments to come and welcomes the queen.
3. Song, "I have slept beneath the water" - The Lady of the Lake (Lemmens-Sherrington)
The Lady of the Lake describes awakening after centuries, to the merry, golden present, and rising to meet the queen.
4. "Let Fauns the cymbal ring" - Quartet (Lemmens-Sherrington, Palmer, Cummings, and Santley) and male chorus of sylvans
The Fauns, Sylvans and Dryads welcome Oriana (a nickname for Elizabeth) with music and tribute, and celebrate her bravery and beauty.
5. Slow Dance with a Burthen (Women's Chorus)
6. Song, "I am a ruler on the sea" - Arion (Santley)
The Greek poet Arion sings of Britain's mastery of the sea and praises the mariners who guard her glorious crown. He says "threatening Spain" could not touch one blade of grass in Britain, as the land itself would rise up against them.
6a. Contralto recitative: "Place for the Queen our show to see, Now speak Immortal Poetry." (Palmer)
7. Scene from The Merchant of Venice (Act V, scene i): "How sweet the moonlight sleeps" (Lemmens-Sherrington and Cummings)
Lorenzo speaks to his new bride, Jessica, comparing the moon and stars in the quiet night to harmony of their souls. He jokingly compares the soundless night to the one when Troilus committed a romantic act of daring for his lover Cressida. Jessica counters in kind, comparing the night to that on which Thisbe fled from the shadow of the lion. They agree that, on such a night, Dido stood upon the sea banks and waved for her love to return to Carthage.
8. A Brisk Dance - Instrumental
9. Contralto solo and Chorus: "After banquet, play, and riot" (Palmer)... "Sleep, great Queen!" (Chorus)
Now that the banquet and play are over, it is time for the queen to sleep. The masque is not yet ended, and the next day will bring new delights. The people bless and hail the queen in a happy, but subdued ending.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ a b c d e See Preface by Robin Gordon-Powell, Archivist & Music Librarian of the Sir Arthur Sullivan Society, to the score of Kenilworth, published by The Amber Ring, London, in 2002
  2. ^ Information about Elizabethan masques
  3. ^ According to Chorley's introduction to the libretto, at the actual event for the queen, The Lady of the Lake arrived on a floating island along the moat, and Arion appeared on a dolphin 24 feet long that carried an orchestra in its belly.
  4. ^ This description of the masque is derived partly from Dan Kravetz's notes in the March 2008 issue of The Palace Peeper, the newsletter of the Gilbert and Sullivan Society of New York]
  5. ^ Information about recordings of Kenilworth from the G&S Discography
  6. ^ Discussion of Kenilworth at the G&S Discography
  7. ^ As Gordon-Powell's Preface notes, there were at least three complete performances during Sullivan's lifetime: the première in Birmingham; at at The Crystal Palace on 12 November 1864; and by the Dublin Philharmonic Society 1868, before Sullivan withdrew the piece. There were also three known complete performances of the masque on the first anniversary of the composer's death and performances in 1903 and 1907.
  8. ^ According to Chorley's review in The Athenium on 17 September 1864. However, according to Kate Field, writing in the May 1879 issue of Scribner's Monthly magazine, p. 907, Charlotte Helen Sainton-Dolby sang the contralto role.
  9. ^ Chorley, writing in The Athenium, 17 September 1864, p. 378, quoted in Henry Fothergill Chorley, Victorian Journalist by Robert Terrell Bledsoe. Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998. ISBN 978-1-84014-257-0
  10. ^ Chorley, writing in The Athenium, 17 September 1864, p. 378, quoted in Henry Fothergill Chorley, Victorian Journalist by Robert Terrell Bledsoe. Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998. ISBN 978-1-84014-257-0

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