Life and career
He was born in Harley Street, London, the son of a clergyman. He was educated at Eton and the London Academy of Music. In 1877 he was appointed to a civil service post in the Lord Chancellor's office, composing music in his spare time. [1]
Harley Street is a street in Marylebone, central London, which has been noted since the 19th century for its large number of private specialists in medicine and surgery. It was named after Thomas Harley who was Lord Mayor of London in 1767.
Eton College is a 13–18 independent boarding school and sixth form for boys in the parish of Eton, near Windsor in Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI as Kynge's College of Our Ladye of Eton besyde Windesore , as a sister institution to King's College, Cambridge, making it the 18th-oldest Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference school. Eton's history and influence have made Eton one of the most prestigious schools in the world.
The Lord Chancellor, formally the Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, is the highest ranking among those Great Officers of State which are appointed regularly in the United Kingdom, nominally outranking the Prime Minister. The Lord Chancellor is outranked only by the Lord High Steward, another Great Officer of State, who is appointed only for the day of coronations. The Lord Chancellor is appointed by the Sovereign on the advice of the Prime Minister. Prior to the Union there were separate lord chancellors for England and Wales, for Scotland and for Ireland.
Reeve's operetta A Private Wire (1883) ran for more than nine months at the Savoy Theatre as a Curtain raiser to Iolanthe . The same year, he wrote Love & Music, a book of poetry. [2] He later composed the music for "Ruddy George, or Robin Redbreast", at Toole's Theatre (1887; a burlesque of Gilbert and Sullivan's Ruddigore ) to a libretto by H. G. F. Taylor. [3] In 1888, Reeve wrote about his old school in "An Eton Half Holiday". [4] His operetta The Crusader and the Craven (1890), with words by W. Allison, had a long run at the Globe Theatre (opening as an afterpiece to an operatic adaptation of The Black Rover) due to its "bright and taking music", [5] despite a libretto described by a later critic as "almost heroically banal", with lines such as, "I am a fierce crusader, a terror to each foe, to infidel invader, I carry death and woe". [6] He contributed to Cupid & Co. in 1894. [7] Reeve also wrote music for burlesques at the Gaiety Theatre and incidental music for West End plays, as well as serious chamber works, and songs to texts by a wide range of authors, from Théophile Gautier to E. Nesbit to Henry Pottinger Stephens. [1] [8]
A Private Wire is a one-act musical "vaudeville" operetta with a libretto by Frank Desprez and Arnold Felix and music by Percy Reeve. It was first produced at the Savoy Theatre on 31 March 1883 to 1 January 1884 as a companion piece to Gilbert and Sullivan's Iolanthe. The piece also toured from March to July 1884.
The Savoy Theatre is a West End theatre in the Strand in the City of Westminster, London, England. The theatre opened on 10 October 1881 and was built by Richard D'Oyly Carte on the site of the old Savoy Palace as a showcase for the popular series of comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan, which became known as the Savoy operas as a result.
Iolanthe; or, The Peer and the Peri is a comic opera with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It is one of the Savoy operas and is the seventh of fourteen operatic collaborations by Gilbert and Sullivan. In the opera, the fairy Iolanthe has been banished from fairyland because she married a mortal; this is forbidden by fairy law. Her son, Strephon, is an Arcadian shepherd who wants to marry Phyllis, a Ward of Chancery. All the members of the House of Peers also want to marry Phyllis. When Phyllis sees Strephon hugging a young woman, she assumes the worst and sets off a climactic confrontation between the peers and the fairies. The opera satirises many aspects of British government, law and society. The confrontation between the fairies and the peers is a version of one of Gilbert's favourite themes: a tranquil civilisation of women is disrupted by a male-dominated world through the discovery of mortal love.
Reeve was also a prolific musical journalist, contributing to a wide range of publications including Punch , The Saturday Review and The Daily Telegraph . [1] In 1896 he was appointed editor of The Lute, a music magazine. After Reeve's death, Lord Northcliffe recalled him in The Musical Times : "He was on my staff for a time, as musical critic; sensitive little man, with beautiful hands – irritable!" [9]
The Daily Telegraph, known online as The Telegraph, is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was founded by Arthur B. Sleigh in 1855 as Daily Telegraph & Courier.
The Musical Times is an academic journal of classical music edited and produced in the United Kingdom and currently the oldest such journal still being published in that country. It was originally published as The Musical Times and Singing Class Circular from 1844 until 1903. Its title was shortened to its present name from January 1904. The journal originally appeared monthly but is now a quarterly publication. It is also available online at JSTOR and RILM Abstracts of Music Literature Full Text.
As a fluent French speaker, he was responsible for the English translation used by F. C. Burnand, and the lyrics, for Edmond Audran's Miss Helyett (1890), staged successfully in London as Miss Decima in 1891. [1]
Sir Francis Cowley Burnand, usually known as F. C. Burnand, was an English comic writer and prolific playwright, best known today as the librettist of Arthur Sullivan's opera Cox and Box.
Achille Edmond Audran was a French composer best known for several internationally successful comic operas, including Les noces d'Olivette (1879), La mascotte (1880), Gillette de Narbonne (1882), La cigale et la fourmi (1886), Miss Helyett (1890), and La poupée (1896).
Miss Helyett is an opérette in three acts with music by Edmond Audran and words by Maxime Boucheron. It depicts the complications ensuing when the excessively puritanical heroine believes herself duty-bound to marry an unknown man who, in rescuing her from a serious fall in the Pyrenees, has been unable to avoid seeing the exposed lower half of her body.
Gilbert and Sullivan refers to the Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the dramatist W. S. Gilbert (1836–1911) and the composer Arthur Sullivan (1842–1900) and to the works they jointly created. The two men collaborated on fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado are among the best known.
Frederick George Hobson, known as Fred Leslie, was an English actor, singer, comedian and dramatist.
Henry Louis Reginald De Koven was an American music critic and prolific composer, particularly of comic operas.
Thespis, or The Gods Grown Old, is an operatic extravaganza that was the first collaboration between dramatist W. S. Gilbert and composer Arthur Sullivan. No musical score of Thespis was ever published, and most of the music has been lost. Gilbert and Sullivan went on to become the most famous and successful artistic partnership in Victorian England, creating a string of comic opera hits, including H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado, which continue to be popular.
Félix Marie Henri Tilkin, better known by his pen name Ivan Caryll, was a Belgian composer of operettas and Edwardian musical comedies in the English language. He composed some forty musical comedies and operettas.
George Joseph Edwardes was an English theatre manager and producer of Irish ancestry who brought a new era in musical theatre to the British stage and beyond.
Basil Willett Charles Hood was a British dramatist and lyricist, perhaps best known for writing the libretti of half a dozen Savoy Operas and for his English adaptations of operettas, including The Merry Widow.
Frank Osmond Carr, known as F. Osmond Carr, was an English composer who wrote the music for several Victorian burlesques before turning to the new genere of Edwardian musical comedy, and also composing some comic operas. He often worked with the lyricist Adrian Ross, and several of his pieces were created for the producer George Edwardes.
Ruy Blas and the Blasé Roué is a burlesque written by A. C. Torr and Herbert F. Clark with music by Meyer Lutz. It is based on the Victor Hugo drama Ruy Blas. The piece was produced by George Edwardes. As with many of the Gaiety burlesques, the title is a pun.
Wilhelm Meyer Lutz was a German-born British composer and conductor who is best known for light music, musical theatre and burlesques of well-known works.
Frankenstein, or The Vampire's Victim is a musical burlesque written by Richard Henry. The music was composed by Meyer Lutz. The piece is a burlesque of the Mary Shelley novel Frankenstein and the Adelphi Theatre drama based on the novel.
Galatea, or Pygmalion Re-Versed is a musical burlesque that parodies the Pygmalion legend, and specifically W. S. Gilbert's 1871 play Pygmalion and Galatea. The libretto was written by Henry Pottinger Stephens and W. Webster. The score was composed by Wilhelm Meyer Lutz.
Faust up to Date is a musical burlesque with a score written by Meyer Lutz. The libretto was written by G. R. Sims and Henry Pettitt. It is a spoof of Gounod's opera, Faust, which had first been performed in London in 1864, and followed on from an earlier Lutz musical, Mephistopheles, or Faust and Marguerite.
John Hollingshead was an English theatrical impresario, journalist and writer during the latter half of the 19th century. After a journalism career, Hollingshead managed the Alhambra Theatre and was later the first manager of the Gaiety Theatre, London. Hollingshead also wrote several books during his life.
Robert Reece was a British comic playwright and librettist active in the Victorian era. He wrote many successful musical burlesques, comic operas, farces and adaptations from the French, including the English-language adaptation of the operetta Les cloches de Corneville, which became the longest-running piece of musical theatre in history up to that time. He sometimes collaborated with Henry Brougham Farnie or others.
Carmen up to Data is a musical burlesque with a score written by Meyer Lutz. The piece was a spoof of Bizet's 1875 opera Carmen. The libretto was written by G. R. Sims and Henry Pettitt.
Frank Wyatt was an English actor, singer, theatre manager and playwright.
Frederick John D'Auban was an English dancer, choreographer and actor of the Victorian and Edwardian eras. Famous during his lifetime as the ballet-master at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, he is best remembered as the choreographer of many of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas.
Joseph Eaton Faning, known as Eaton Faning, was an English composer and teacher. The son of a music teacher, he became the organist of a church at the age of twelve. He attended the Royal Academy of Music, where his teachers included Arthur Sullivan. He was an outstanding student, winning many awards. He joined the staff of the Academy in 1874 and later taught at the Guildhall School of Music, the Royal College of Music and Harrow School.
