In 1872 Sullivan's Te Deum for the recovery of the prince of Wales was performed at the Crystal Palace. In 1873 he produced at the Birmingham Musical Festival his oratorio The Light of the World, in 1877 he wrote his incidental music to Henry VIII., in 1880 his sacred cantata The Martyr of Antioch, and in 1886 The Golden Legend was brought out at the Leeds Festival. In 1891, for the opening of D'Oyly Carte's new English opera-house in Shaftesbury Avenue, now the Palace Theatre, he wrote his "grand opera" Ivanhoe to a libretto by Julian Sturgis. The attempt to put an English opera on the stage for a long run was doomed to failure, but Ivanhoe contains many admirable pages. In 1892 he composed incidental music to Tennyson's Foresters. In 1897 he wrote a ballet for the Alhambra, called Victoria and Merrie England. Among his numerous songs, the best known are "Or pheus with his Lute," "Thou'rt Passing Hence" and, most famous of all, "The Lost Chord." This last, hackneyed as it became, was probably the most successful English song of the 19th cen tury. The hymn tune, "Onward, Christian Soldiers!" (1872) shows Sullivan in another light. In 1876 he accepted the prin cipalship of the National Training School of Music, which he held for six years ; this was the germ of the subsequent Royal College. He was conductor of the Leeds Festivals from 1879 to
1898, besides being conductor of the Philharmonic Society in 1885. He died on Nov. 22, 19oo and was buried in St. Paul's cathedral. Among works which he left unpublished may be men tioned a Te Deum written for performance at the end of the Boer War, and an unfinished Savoy opera to a libretto by Basil Hood, which, completed by Edward German, was produced in I90 as The Emerald Isle.
Sullivan was the one really popular English composer of any artistic standing in his time. One of the most agreeable com panions, broad-minded, and free from all affectation, he was in tensely admired and loved in all circles of society; and though he suffered during many years from a painful ailment, he enjoyed life without being spoilt by success.
See A. Lawrence, Sir Arthur Sullivan: Life Story, Letters and Reminiscences (1899) ; H. Saxe-Wyndham, Arthur Seymour Sullivan (1926) ; Herbert Sullivan and Newman Flower, Sir Arthur Sullivan, His Life, Letters and Diaries (1928).