s transmuted
into sound.

In 'H.M.S. Pinafore' (1878) Sullivan scored his first great popular
success. 'The Sorcerer' had appealed to the few; 'Pinafore' carried the
masses by storm. In humour and in musicianship alike it is less subtle
than its predecessor, but it triumphed by sheer dash and high spirits.
There is a smack of the sea in music and libretto alike. 'Pinafore' was
irresistible, and Sullivan became the most popular composer of the day.
'The Pirates of Penzance' (1880) followed the lines of 'Pinafore,' with
humour perhaps less abundant but with an added touch of refinement.
There are passages in 'The Pirates' tenderer in tone, one might almost
say more pathetic, than anything Sullivan had previously written,
passages which gave more than a hint of the triumphs he was later to win
in that mingling of tears and laughter of which he had the secret In
'Patience' (1881) musician and librettist mutually agreed to leave the
realm of farcical extravagance, and to turn to satire of a peculiarly
keen-edged and delicate kind--that satire which caresses while it cuts,
and somehow contrives to win sympathy for its object even when it is
most mordant. There are people nowadays who have been known to declare
that the "aesthetic" movement had no existence outside the imagination of
Mr. Gilbert and 'Mr. Punch.' In the eighties, however, everybody
believed in it, and believed too that 'Patience' killed it. What is
quite certain is that, whoever killed it, 'Patience' embalmed it in
odours and spices of the most fragrant and costly description, so that
it has remained a thing of beauty even to our own day. In 'Iolanthe'
(1882) Mr. Gilbert reached the dizziest height of topsy-turvydom to
which he ever climbed, and set Sullivan to solve what was perhaps the
most difficult problem of his whole career. To bring the atmosphere of
fairyland into the House of Lords was a task which the most accomplished
master of musical satire might well have refused, but Sullivan came
victoriously through the ordeal. His 'Iolanthe' music, with its blending
of things aerial with things terrene, and its contrast between the solid
qualities of our hereditary legislators and the irresponsible ecstasy of
fairyland is one of the most surprising feats of musical imagination
that even his career can furnish. In 'Princess Ida' (1884), which is, so
to speak, a burlesque of a burlesque, his task was easier. 'Princess
Ida' contains some of his most brilliant exc