Sir Arthur Sullivan began work on his cantata, "The Golden Legend", on 24th April 1886. Chorus rehearsals started on September 10th, and it received its premiere on 16th October 1886, at the Leeds Festival in the North of England. The lyrics were by Joseph Bennett, adapted from Longfellow's poem of the same name. Although relatively unappreciated in the post-1914 period, the work was a popular choice for large Victorian choral groups; only "The Messiah" received more public performances by British choirs in the last quarter of the C19th. The vocal score was first published in an Octavo edition in 1886, by Novello, Ewer & Co. of London. It is believed that the choir at the first performance held printed scores, but whether these were identical to the first published score is unclear.

There is no title page; the score starts on page one with the first bars of music, (which are rather different from the first published edition, as discussed later). Sullivan's dedication on the page one flap reads, "To Samuel Aitken from Arthur Sullivan who composed this admirable work !". This seemingly pompous description of his own work can only be explained by the fact that Sullivan and Aitken were sharing a private joke.

Surprisingly little is known about Samuel Aitken; he was elected to the Committee of Management of the Royal Academy of Music in 1895 but whether he was a composer, teacher or administrator is unknown. He had been proposed to the RAM in 1894 by the composer Sir Alexander Mackenzie, who is known to have had dinner at Aitken's Cardiff home in in 1886. Mackenzie conducted the first London performance of "The Golden Legend", so it is possible that all three men were friends at this early date. However, our research has discovered a more concrete link between Aitken and Sullivan, as both were members of the Board of the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music between 1896 and 1900 (Aitken was Honorary Secretary for some of this period). Since this committee met monthly during term-time, and consisted of just twelve members at any one time, there was plenty of opportunity for Sullivan and Aitken to interact. We can imagine Aitken praising Sir Arthur's cantata, describing it as "admirable"; the gift of the pages of the proof score reflecting his comments. Presumably it was Aitken who ordered the binding of these pages in Cardiff at some point after the gift was made.

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At Bennett's suggestion Sullivan changed the opening of the piece, shortly before the first performance, adding a peal of bells in the first bar. Another late change to the piece was a reworking of the first bars of the choral epilogue, and as the latter change is represented in this proof, while the former is not, we must assume that it was printed at some point between these two amendments.

In addition to the major differences between the proof copy and the published score, there are other minor ones affecting the music, and in particular the dynamics of the piano accompaniment. For example, on page six there are the following discrepancies between the two: In the first bar, the alto line is not denoted as such, although the soprano line is. Bar two: the piano line omits the forte symbol. At bar eight the vocal lines are not marked mezzoforte.

Page six is far from an exception, as we have noted many minor errors and changes in this proof score; on page sixty-three's footer, "edition" is misspelled "eition" ! A detailed study of all these minor changes and omissions would be fascinating. Sullivan's diary for 1886, now at the Beinecke library at Yale University, gives a likely date for his revisions to the proof score, as he there recorded that he had, "corrected final revise of v. score at Novello's", on September 18th. It is quite likely therefore that the proof on sale here contains the draft as it stood before his musical amendments on that date.