Ethel Smyth
Encyclopedia
Dame Ethel Mary Smyth, DBE (23 April 18588 May 1944) was an English
composer and a leader of the women's suffrage
movement.
Smyth was born in Woking
, Surrey
. J. H. Smyth, her father, was a Major-General in the Royal Artillery
. She was one of eight siblings. Her family was opposed to her making a career in music. She studied with Alexander Ewing
when she was seventeen and took an interest in Wagner
and Berlioz
. After a major battle with her family about it, she was allowed to study music in Leipzig
, with Carl Reinecke
, amongst others, and then, after leaving the conservatoire, privately with Heinrich von Herzogenberg
. While at the conservatory she met some important composers including Dvořák
, Grieg
and Tchaikovsky
, but she considered the tuition substandard and left after a year. Through Herzogenberg she met Clara Schumann
and Brahms
. Later she wrote her Mass in D in 1891 (in spite of being an atheist), which is very much in the style of Brahms's A German Requiem. She also wrote some German songs in his style and the Seven Short Chorale Preludes.
Ethel Smyth's works included chamber pieces, symphonies, choral works and operas (most famously The Wreckers
).
In 1910 Smyth joined the Women's Social and Political Union
, a militant suffrage organization, giving up music for two years to devote herself to the cause. Her "The March of the Women
" (1911) became the anthem of the women's suffrage
movement, though suffragists most often shouted the words, by Cicely Hamilton
, rather than actually singing Smyth's tune. When the W.S.P.U.'s leader, Emmeline Pankhurst
, called on members to break the windows of anti-suffrage politicians as a protest, Smyth - along with 108 others – did so. She served two months in Holloway Prison. When Thomas Beecham
went to visit her there, he found suffragettes marching in the quadrangle and singing, as Smyth leaned out a window conducting the song with a toothbrush.
In 1922 she was created a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE).
.
She was later a model for the fictional Dame Hilda Tablet
in the 1950s radio plays of Henry Reed.
She was portrayed by Maureen Pryor
in the 1974 BBC television film Shoulder to Shoulder
. Maureen Pryor had previously played Delius
's wife Jelka
and Tchaikovsky
's mother-in-law in Ken Russell
films.
.
Smyth was prone to grand romantic passions, most of them with women. She wrote to Harry Brewster, who may have been her only male lover, that it was "easier for me to love my own sex passionately, rather than yours", calling this an "everlasting puzzle". At age 71 she fell in love with writer Virginia Woolf
, who, both alarmed and amused, said it was "like being caught by a giant crab", but the two became friends.
, her place of birth, at the age of 86 and was cremated at Woking crematorium.
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
composer and a leader of the women's suffrage
Women's suffrage
Women's suffrage or woman suffrage is the right of women to vote and to run for office. The expression is also used for the economic and political reform movement aimed at extending these rights to women and without any restrictions or qualifications such as property ownership, payment of tax, or...
movement.
Early career
Woking
Woking is a large town and civil parish that shares its name with the surrounding local government district, located in the west of Surrey, UK. It is part of the Greater London Urban Area and the London commuter belt, with frequent trains and a journey time of 24 minutes to Waterloo station....
, Surrey
Surrey
Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of...
. J. H. Smyth, her father, was a Major-General in the Royal Artillery
Royal Artillery
The Royal Regiment of Artillery, commonly referred to as the Royal Artillery , is the artillery arm of the British Army. Despite its name, it comprises a number of regiments.-History:...
. She was one of eight siblings. Her family was opposed to her making a career in music. She studied with Alexander Ewing
Alexander Ewing
Alexander Ewing was a Scottish church leader.He was born of an old Highland family in Aberdeen, Scotland. In October 1838 he was admitted to deacon's orders, and after his return from Italy he took charge of the episcopal congregation at Forres, and was ordained a presbyter in the autumn of 1841...
when she was seventeen and took an interest in Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
and Berlioz
Hector Berlioz
Hector Berlioz was a French Romantic composer, best known for his compositions Symphonie fantastique and Grande messe des morts . Berlioz made significant contributions to the modern orchestra with his Treatise on Instrumentation. He specified huge orchestral forces for some of his works; as a...
. After a major battle with her family about it, she was allowed to study music in Leipzig
Leipzig
Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...
, with Carl Reinecke
Carl Reinecke
Carl Heinrich Carsten Reinecke was a German composer, conductor, and pianist.-Biography:Reinecke was born in Altona, Hamburg, Germany; until 1864 the town was under Danish rule. He studied with his father, Johann Peter Rudolph Reinecke, a music teacher...
, amongst others, and then, after leaving the conservatoire, privately with Heinrich von Herzogenberg
Heinrich von Herzogenberg
Heinrich Picot de Peccaduc, Freiherr von Herzogenberg was an Austrian composer and conductor descended from a French aristocratic family....
. While at the conservatory she met some important composers including Dvořák
Antonín Dvorák
Antonín Leopold Dvořák was a Czech composer of late Romantic music, who employed the idioms of the folk music of Moravia and his native Bohemia. Dvořák’s own style is sometimes called "romantic-classicist synthesis". His works include symphonic, choral and chamber music, concerti, operas and many...
, Grieg
Edvard Grieg
Edvard Hagerup Grieg was a Norwegian composer and pianist. He is best known for his Piano Concerto in A minor, for his incidental music to Henrik Ibsen's play Peer Gynt , and for his collection of piano miniatures Lyric Pieces.-Biography:Edvard Hagerup Grieg was born in...
and Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Russian: Пётр Ильи́ч Чайко́вский ; often "Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky" in English. His names are also transliterated "Piotr" or "Petr"; "Ilitsch", "Il'ich" or "Illyich"; and "Tschaikowski", "Tschaikowsky", "Chajkovskij"...
, but she considered the tuition substandard and left after a year. Through Herzogenberg she met Clara Schumann
Clara Schumann
Clara Schumann was a German musician and composer, considered one of the most distinguished pianists of the Romantic era...
and Brahms
Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...
. Later she wrote her Mass in D in 1891 (in spite of being an atheist), which is very much in the style of Brahms's A German Requiem. She also wrote some German songs in his style and the Seven Short Chorale Preludes.
Ethel Smyth's works included chamber pieces, symphonies, choral works and operas (most famously The Wreckers
The Wreckers (opera)
The Wreckers is an opera in three acts, composed by Dame Ethel Smyth to a libretto in French by Henry Brewster. The first performance took place at the Neues Theater, Leipzig in a German translation by John Bernhoff as Strandrecht on 11 November 1906....
).
In 1910 Smyth joined the Women's Social and Political Union
Women's Social and Political Union
The Women's Social and Political Union was the leading militant organisation campaigning for Women's suffrage in the United Kingdom...
, a militant suffrage organization, giving up music for two years to devote herself to the cause. Her "The March of the Women
The March of the Women
"The March of the Women" was the anthem of the English women's suffrage movement. It was composed in 1910 by Ethel Smyth as a unison song with optional piano accompaniment, with words by Cicely Hamilton. Smyth dedicated the song to the Women's Social and Political Union...
" (1911) became the anthem of the women's suffrage
Women's suffrage
Women's suffrage or woman suffrage is the right of women to vote and to run for office. The expression is also used for the economic and political reform movement aimed at extending these rights to women and without any restrictions or qualifications such as property ownership, payment of tax, or...
movement, though suffragists most often shouted the words, by Cicely Hamilton
Cicely Hamilton
Cicely Mary Hamilton , born Hammill, was an English actress, writer, journalist, suffragist, lesbian and feminist. She is now best known for the play Diana of Dobson's, with a setting in an Edwardian department store....
, rather than actually singing Smyth's tune. When the W.S.P.U.'s leader, Emmeline Pankhurst
Emmeline Pankhurst
Emmeline Pankhurst was a British political activist and leader of the British suffragette movement which helped women win the right to vote...
, called on members to break the windows of anti-suffrage politicians as a protest, Smyth - along with 108 others – did so. She served two months in Holloway Prison. When Thomas Beecham
Thomas Beecham
Sir Thomas Beecham, 2nd Baronet CH was an English conductor and impresario best known for his association with the London Philharmonic and the Royal Philharmonic orchestras. He was also closely associated with the Liverpool Philharmonic and Hallé orchestras...
went to visit her there, he found suffragettes marching in the quadrangle and singing, as Smyth leaned out a window conducting the song with a toothbrush.
In 1922 she was created a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE).
Representations
She featured, under the name of Edith Staines, in E. F. Benson's Dodo books (1893-1921), decades before the quaint musical characters of his more famous Miss Mapp series. She "gleefully acknowledged" the portrait, according to Prunella ScalesPrunella Scales
Prunella Scales CBE is an English actress, known for her role as Basil Fawlty's long-suffering wife in the British comedy Fawlty Towers and her award-nominated role as Queen Elizabeth II in the British film A Question of Attribution.-Career:Throughout her long career, Scales has usually been cast...
.
She was later a model for the fictional Dame Hilda Tablet
Hilda Tablet
Dame Hilda Tablet is a fictitious "twelve-tone composeress" created by Henry Reed in a series of radio comedy plays for the British Broadcasting Corporation's Third Programme...
in the 1950s radio plays of Henry Reed.
She was portrayed by Maureen Pryor
Maureen Pryor
Maureen Pryor was an Irish-born English character actress. She appeared on stage, screen and television.-Early life:Maureen Pryor was born Maureen Pook in 1922 in Limerick, Ireland, to a Cockney father and an Irish mother...
in the 1974 BBC television film Shoulder to Shoulder
Shoulder to Shoulder
"Shoulder to Shoulder" was a book and 1974 BBC TV miniseries of the women's suffrage movement both by Midge Mackenzie.The book documents the lives and works of some of Britain's leading "suffragettes." It includes many excerpts from their speeches, diaries, letters, memoirs, other writings and...
. Maureen Pryor had previously played Delius
Frederick Delius
Frederick Theodore Albert Delius, CH was an English composer. Born in the north of England to a prosperous mercantile family of German extraction, he resisted attempts to recruit him to commerce...
's wife Jelka
Jelka Rosen
Helena Sophie Emilie "Jelka" Delius was a painter, and wife of composer Frederick Delius.-Life and work:...
and Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Russian: Пётр Ильи́ч Чайко́вский ; often "Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky" in English. His names are also transliterated "Piotr" or "Petr"; "Ilitsch", "Il'ich" or "Illyich"; and "Tschaikowski", "Tschaikowsky", "Chajkovskij"...
's mother-in-law in Ken Russell
Ken Russell
Henry Kenneth Alfred "Ken" Russell was an English film director, known for his pioneering work in television and film and for his flamboyant and controversial style. He attracted criticism as being obsessed with sexuality and the church...
films.
Personal life
Smyth lived at Frimhurst, near Frimley GreenFrimley Green
Frimley Green is a large village in Surrey, South East England, UK, close to the border with Hampshire. It is close to the towns of Camberley and Frimley, with the nearest major town being Guildford, approximately 10 miles away....
.
Smyth was prone to grand romantic passions, most of them with women. She wrote to Harry Brewster, who may have been her only male lover, that it was "easier for me to love my own sex passionately, rather than yours", calling this an "everlasting puzzle". At age 71 she fell in love with writer Virginia Woolf
Virginia Woolf
Adeline Virginia Woolf was an English author, essayist, publisher, and writer of short stories, regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century....
, who, both alarmed and amused, said it was "like being caught by a giant crab", but the two became friends.
Later life
Her hearing deteriorated in her later years, and she wrote little music. She died in WokingWoking
Woking is a large town and civil parish that shares its name with the surrounding local government district, located in the west of Surrey, UK. It is part of the Greater London Urban Area and the London commuter belt, with frequent trains and a journey time of 24 minutes to Waterloo station....
, her place of birth, at the age of 86 and was cremated at Woking crematorium.
Operas
- Fantasio (1898)
- Der Wald (1902)
- The WreckersThe Wreckers (opera)The Wreckers is an opera in three acts, composed by Dame Ethel Smyth to a libretto in French by Henry Brewster. The first performance took place at the Neues Theater, Leipzig in a German translation by John Bernhoff as Strandrecht on 11 November 1906....
(1906) - The Boatswain's MateThe Boatswain's MateThe Boatswain's Mate is an opera in one act written by British composer and suffragette Ethel Smyth in 1913–14. It was Smyth's fourth and most unabashedly feminist opera...
(1916) - Fête GalanteFête galanteFête galante is a French term referring to some of the celebrated pursuits of the idle, rich aristocrats in the 18th century—from 1715 until the 1770s...
(1923) - Entente Cordiale (1925)
See also
- Women's Social and Political UnionWomen's Social and Political UnionThe Women's Social and Political Union was the leading militant organisation campaigning for Women's suffrage in the United Kingdom...
- Emmeline PankhurstEmmeline PankhurstEmmeline Pankhurst was a British political activist and leader of the British suffragette movement which helped women win the right to vote...
- List of suffragists and suffragettes
Discography
- Violin Sonata in A minor, Op. 7, Cello Sonata in A minor, Op. 5, String Quintet in E major, Op. 1, String Quartet in E minor (1912): Renate Eggebrecht, violin, Friedemann Kupsa cello, Céline Dutilly piano, fanny mendelssohn quartet, TRO-CD 01403 (2-CD-Set).
- Double Concerto in A for violin, horn and piano (1926): Renate Eggebrecht violin, Franz Draxinger horn, Céline Dutilly piano; Four Songs for mezzosoprano and chamber ensemble (1907): Melinda Paulsen mezzo, Ethel Smyth ensemble; Three songs for mezzosoprano and piano (1913): Melinda Paulsen mezzo, Angela Gassenhuber piano, TRO-CD 01405.
- Cello Sonata in C minor (1880): Friedemann Kupsa cello, Anna Silova piano; Lieder und Balladen, Opp. 3 & 4, Three Moods of the Sea (1913): Maarten Koningsberger baritone, Kelvin Grout piano, TRO-CD 01417.
Further reading
- Bartsch, Cornelia; Grotjahn, Rebecca; Unseld, Melanie Felsensprengerin, Brückenbauerin, Wegbereiterin: Die Komponistin Ethel Smyth. Rock Blaster, Bridge Builder, Road Paver: The Composer Ethel Smyth Allitera (2010) ISBN 9783869060682
- Collis, Louise Impetuous Heart: Story of Ethel Smyth William Kimber & Co Ltd, (1984) ISBN 0718305434
- Crichton, Ronald The Memoirs of Ethel Smyth Viking, (1987)
- Smyth, Ethel Impressions That Remained - Memoirs of Ethel Smyth (2007) ISBN 1406711381
- Smyth, Ethel Streaks Of Life, Best Books, (2001) ISBN 072225525X, Read Books, (2006) ISBN 140673554X
- Smyth, Ethel As Time Went On Longmans, Green and Co. (1936)
- St. John, Christopher Ethel Smyth Longmans
External links
- Ethel Smyth Research Centre Detmold, Germany
- Ethel Smyth String Quintet in E Major, Op.1 & String Quartet in e minor, Soundbites and short bio
- The E. OE. Somerville and Martin Ross Exhibition (covers correspondence between Smyth and Edith Anna SomervilleEdith Anna SomervilleEdith Anna Œnone Somerville was an Irish novelist who habitually signed herself as "E. Œ. Somerville". She wrote in collaboration with her cousin "Martin Ross" under the pseudonym "Somerville and Ross"...
) - Finding Aid for the Ethel Mary Smyth Letters, 1894-1937
- Ethel Mary Smyth manuscript from the Special Collections and University Archives Department at the University of North Carolina at GreensboroUniversity of North Carolina at GreensboroThe University of North Carolina at Greensboro , also known as UNC Greensboro, is a public university in Greensboro, North Carolina, United States and is a constituent institution of the University of North Carolina system. The university offers more than 100 undergraduate, 61 master's and 26...
- Ethel Mary Smyth letter from the Special Collections and University Archives Department at the University of North Carolina at GreensboroUniversity of North Carolina at GreensboroThe University of North Carolina at Greensboro , also known as UNC Greensboro, is a public university in Greensboro, North Carolina, United States and is a constituent institution of the University of North Carolina system. The university offers more than 100 undergraduate, 61 master's and 26...
- Ethel Mary Smyth letter 2 from the Special Collections and University Archives Department at the University of North Carolina at GreensboroUniversity of North Carolina at GreensboroThe University of North Carolina at Greensboro , also known as UNC Greensboro, is a public university in Greensboro, North Carolina, United States and is a constituent institution of the University of North Carolina system. The university offers more than 100 undergraduate, 61 master's and 26...
- A Portrait of Ethel Smyth (BBC Radio programme)
- Dame Ethel Mary Smyth (1858-1944), Composer and writer (National Portrait Gallery)
- Essentially Ethel (one-woman show by Gill Stoker)
- Works by Ethel Smyth on Internet Archive
- Photograph of Dame Ethel Smyth 1923
