Online Music Library

Arthur Sullivan – Incidental Music to The Tempest

Notes:

If you have difficulty downloading or printing the parts please let us know: icorchestra@gmail.com

For our March 2025 concert there are some cuts in the music:

  • The first section of Act 1 Scene 2 no.2 (Allegro vivace) is cut. We go straight from the Introduction no1 into the song “Come unto these yellow sands.
  • Act 3 scene 2 no.5 is cut
  • We play no.6 Banquet Dance up to the Andante/cut common section/dialogue. The Andante and Allegretto grazioso “Come I” are both cut. We play again at no 7 Overture to Act 4.
  • In no.10 “Dance of Nymphs and Reapers there are no repeats – go straight to all the 2nd time bars
  • We play no.11 Prelude to Act 5; we cut scene 1/Andante immediately before no.12
  • We play no.12 through to the end.

Strings –

Violin 1

Violin 2

Viola

Cello

Bass

Woodwind

Piccolo

Flute

Oboe

Clarinet

Bassoon

Brass

Horn

Trumpet

Trombone 1/2 (Alto Tenor)

Trombone 3 (Bass)

Percussion/Conductor

Timpani

Percussion

Full Score

Youtube/MP3:

Youtube link

Youtube link with score

Program Notes:

Arthur Sullivan (1842 – 1900)
 
Incidental Music to “The Tempest”, Op.1, 1861, revised 1862.
 
Arthur Sullivan was born in London, the son of the bandmaster to the Royal Military Academy
Sandhurst. By the age of 8 he had already learnt to play all of the instruments in his father’s band and at 14 he won the first Mendelssohn Scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music. This scholarship allowed him to study at the Leipzig Conservatoire.
 
Sullivan composed his incidental music to Shakespeare’s The Tempest in 1860-1861. Six
movements, the Introduction, Ariel’s song, an Entr’acte, the Grotesque Dance, Entr’acte and
Epilogue, and the Dance of they Nymphs and Reapers, were given their first performance at the Graduation Concert held at the Leipzig Gewendhaus in 1861, which marked the end of Sullivan’s time as a student at the Leipzig Conservatoire.
 
The music was well received both by the audience in the hall that evening and by the Leipzig
press. The Neue Zeitschrift für Music commented: Mr Arthur Sullivan from London produced
music for Shakespeare’s The Tempest which showed him strongly influenced by Schumann, andto some extent Mendelssohn … the composer handles the orchestral medium skilfully, and achieves charming effects.
 
On his return to London, Sullivan made some revisions to the score and, almost a year after the Leipzig performance, the work, now extended to twelve movements, was given its first London performance. The Times reported: Enough at present to say that his music to The  Tempest, while betraying a strong partiality for Mendelssohn’s fascinating style, exhibits remarkable merits, and
among the rest a decided vein for melody, a strong feeling of dramatic expression, and a happy fancy in the treatment of the orchestra … At the conclusion there was a loud call for ‘the composer’ who was greeted with the heartiest applause on all sides.
 
On the morning of 5 April 1862, few had heard of Sullivan. That evening he became famous and his career as a composer was triumphantly launched.
 
Program Notes:-
Gilbert & Sullivan Archive – https://gsarchive.net/sullivan/tempest/index.html