The Sapphire Necklace

By 1864, the young Sullivan had written a ballet (L'Île Enchantée), orchestral pieces including The Masque at Kenilworth, several hymns, a few piano solos, and some part songs and parlour ballads.

[8] On 13 April 1867, a selection of songs from the opera were performed at The Crystal Palace, arranged for military band by Charles Godfrey Jr.

He also mentioned, in an 1897 letter to his secretary, Wilfred Bendall, having part of the score in front of him when composing Victoria and Merrie England.

[11][12] (With Sullivan's repeats eliminated) In a 2022 review for MusicWeb International, Nick Barnard wrote: "Both [the 1992] version and the [2022] recording orchestrated by Robin Gordon-Powell appear to have been based on the same surviving military band arrangement made by Charles Godfrey Jr. Because of the presence of two different orchestrators the work is essentially the same-but-different across the two recordings.

[T]here are tantalising hints in some of the melodic shapes, and the overture’s final grand peroration, of the musical path Sullivan would be taking in the years ahead.