his chosen instrumentation or his harmonic techniques. In the comic operas, where many numbers are in verse-plus-refrain form, Sullivan shaped his melodies to provide a climax for the verse, capped by an overall climax in the refrain. Hughes cites "If you go in" (Iolanthe) as an example. He adds that Sullivan rarely reached the same class of excellence in instrumental works, where he had no librettist to feed his imagination. Even with Gilbert, on those occasions when the librettist wrote in unvaried metre, Sullivan often followed suit and produced phrases of simple repetition, such as in "Love Is a Plaintive Song" (Patience) and "A Man Who Would Woo a Fair Maid" (The Yeomen of the Guard). Sullivan preferred to write in major keys, overwhelmingly in the Savoy operas, and even in his serious works. Examples of his rare excursions into minor keys include the long E minor melody in the first movement of the Irish Symphony, "Go Away, Madam" in the Act I finale of Iolanthe (echoing Verdi and Beethoven) and the execution march in the Act I finale of The Yeomen of the Guard. Harmony and counterpoint Sullivan was trained in the classical style, and contemporary music did not greatly attract him. Harmonically his early works used the conventional formulae of early-nineteenth-century composers including Mendelssohn, Auber, Donizetti, Balfe and Schubert. Hughes comments that harmonic contrast in the Savoy works is enhanced by Sullivan's characteristic modulation between keys, as in "Expressive Glances" (Princess Ida), where he negotiates smoothly E major, C sharp minor and C major, or "Then One of Us will Be a Queen" (The Gondoliers), where he writes in F major, D flat major and D minor. When reproached for using consecutive fifths in Cox and Box, Sullivan replied "if 5ths turn up it doesn't matter, so long as there is no offence to the ear." Both Hughes and Jacobs in Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians comment adversely on Sullivan's overuse of tonic pedals, usually in the bass, which Hughes attributes to "lack of enterprise or even downright laziness". Another Sullivan trademark criticised by Hughes is the repeated use of the chord of the augmented fourth at moments of pathos. In his serious works, Sullivan attempted to avoid harmonic devices associated with the Savoy operas, with the result, according to Hughes, that The Golden Legend is a "hotch-potch of harmonic styles". One of Sullivan's best-known devices is