Customer Reviews

Arthur Sullivan: A Victorian Musician

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4 star:		(1)
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There is an enormous amount of information in this book about Sullivan, and about Gilbert and D'Oyly Carte, and . . . and about everybody Sullivan ever met, and everything Sullivan ever did, and what he ate and where he ate it, and just about everything else the author happened to put in his research notes. A major British music teacher and scholar, the author's musical examples and opinions tend to be spot on; I know many of Sullivan's works well and cannot find fault with anything Jacobs says. Certainly anyone reading this book, no matter how much he or she has enjoyed listening to Sullivan's music and perhaps studying and performing it, will surely learn something new. The only reason I give it only 4 stars is that there really is too much ephemera, too many identifications of people who played no part in his professional or even private life and whose presence just makes the book longer than it needs to be - if it were cut by a third, it would be that much better. But no one who writes about Sullivan in the future can fail to cite it. Complete list of works and extensive bibliography. Recommended.