Classic Ross Amico

Tag: The Wreckers

Ethel Smyth: Beyond Labels, Rediscovering Her Music

I’ve written about Dame Ethel here before. I always liked her music and was a champion of her stuff before it was cool. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I find her Serenade in D, a symphony in all but name, more rewarding than anything written in the form by either of her near-contemporaries, Parry or Stanford. What’s even more remarkable is the range of her development, that the same composer who wrote the Serenade in 1890 (when she was already 32), a big-hearted, Brahmsian creation full of great tunes, arrived at her last, meditative symphony, “The Prison,” as much an oratorio or cantata for vocal soloists and orchestra, in the ruminative manner of Mahler, in 1930.

This is not a bad article, even if the slant makes her out to be more of a battle-axe than she really was. Yes, she was determined (as she had to be), and yes, she busted out some windows, but in between she was just trying to live a happy, fulfilling life like the rest of us. Unquestionably Smyth had lesbian inclinations (most of her lovers were women), but there’s no way in hell she would have described herself as “defiantly queer.” One of the things I find so annoying these days is how everyone, whether specialist or person on the street, seems hellbent on interpreting the past through the lens of the present. Hence, we get the front-loaded insinuation about Smyth’s allegedly bigoted views, as an English citizen whose consciousness was formed during the height of the Victorian era. I just read her memoirs a month or two ago, and trust me, she was not a repugnant, malicious person in any respect.

Ironically, this preoccupation with snap judgments and pigeonholing is the very thing that limited Smyth during her career as a “lady composer.” It’s as misguided as the now seemingly ensconced practice of updating with lurid productions operas composed generations ago, in an attempt to make them seem more “relevant” to the present. If the music and the story and the overall effect truly are timeless, is it really necessary to make everything look like a New Jersey rest stop? If you wonder what I’m ranting about, see the stills from the recent Glyndebourne production of Smyth’s “The Wreckers” at the link (by clicking on the BBC photo below).

I’m grateful that Dame Ethel is getting so much attention now after decades of comparative neglect. I suppose there is a pendulum effect in any revolution, and there is usually a period of overcompensation before things start to swing back, but I long for the day that artists of all backgrounds are finally accepted for their inherent worth, without having to over-politicize everything. I love Smyth for the beauty of her music, not because she was “defiantly queer” or “problematically bigoted.” Hopefully in a few decades, none of this will mean anything. We’ll have learned from history and evolved, and finally we can get back to experiencing the music.

Serenade in D

“The Prison”

“The Wreckers Overture” (conducted by Smyth)

July 22, 2022
Ethel Smyth: Suffragette Composer

It’s International Women’s Day. The global holiday, established to celebrate the cultural, political, and socioeconomic achievements of women, has its roots in the universal female suffrage movement.

Perhaps the composer most frequently associated with the movement was Dame Ethel Smyth (1858-1944). I am reminded of Sir Thomas Beecham’s recollection of Smyth, already in her 50s, conducting an impromptu chorus of women, gathered in a prison courtyard for exercise, by waving her toothbrush between the bars of her cell.

Smyth was incarcerated for two months for smashing out the windows of politicians who opposed the female vote. Her “March of the Women” became the anthem of the women’s suffrage movement in England.

But Smyth was more than just a political firebrand. Unusual for a woman of the time, she was also a composer of some renown. Her opera, “Der Wald” (“The Forest”), would be the only work by a female composer produced at New York’s Metropolitan Opera for over a century. That was in 1903.

Anticipating the assertion that well-behaved women seldom make history, Smyth was driven to act up from the start. And who could blame her?

She managed to outmaneuver her father, a major general in the Royal Artillery. When he objected to her pursuit of a career in music, she took the initiative to study privately. An all-out war of wills ensued. Ethel’s stomach proved stronger than her dad’s. In the end, he allowed her to attend the Leipzig Conservatory.

When the conservatory didn’t measure up to Smyth’s expectations, she sought out Heinrich von Herzogenberg for further polish. Her travels also brought her into contact with Dvořák, Grieg, Tchaikovsky, Clara Schumann, and Herzogenberg’s friend, Johannes Brahms.

It was at a private performance of Brahms’ Piano Quintet, with the composer in attendance, that Smyth’s St. Bernard mix, Marco, burst through a door, toppling the cellist’s music stand, which, much to everyone’s relief, the notoriously prickly Brahms found hilarious. Later, when Tchaikovsky wrote to Smyth, he never failed to ask after Marco.

Her first piece to be played in public was her String Quintet in E major (1884).

Her first orchestral work, the Serenade in D (1889) – written with the encouragement of Tchaikovsky – is better than just about anything composed by Sir Hubert Parry (whose music I happen to enjoy) and much more compelling than the symphonies of Sir Charles Villiers Stanford. Smyth’s serenade is a symphony in all but name, with some pretty good tunes.

Even so, it was only in 1893, after her Mass in D was favorably received by George Bernard Shaw – he declared the Mass “magnificent” – that her father finally warmed to her chosen career.

While she met with considerable success in her lifetime, as a woman, she was still often marginalized and had to push for almost everything. In her mid-50s, she began to lose her hearing. Undeterred, she commenced a second career as a writer, producing ten books. She was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1922.

The next time a music director is looking for an alternative to Elgar (himself not exactly overplayed in this U.S.), he or she could do worse than to consider Ethel Smyth. The overture to “The Wreckers” (1906) would make for a dynamic curtain-raiser.

Beecham considered “The Wreckers” to be Smyth’s masterpiece. In 2015, the opera was presented at Bard College, in a series of performances under the direction of Leon Botstein. Botstein led a concert performance of the piece at Carnegie Hall in 2007. Happily, the Bard production was filmed.

Smyth herself conducts the overture here, in a 1930 recording.

Finally, here’s “March of the Women” (1910), sung with more polish than it would have been in a prison courtyard.

PHOTO: Smyth rocks the boat

March 8, 2022
Ethel Smyth: Rebel Composer and Suffragette

When I think of Dame Ethel Smyth (1858-1944), the first thing that springs to mind is Sir Thomas Beecham’s recollection of her leading an impromptu chorus of women, gathered in a prison courtyard for exercise, by conducting with her toothbrush between the bars of her cell.

Smyth was incarcerated for two months for smashing out the windows of politicians who opposed the female vote. Her “March of the Women” became the anthem of the women’s suffrage movement in England.

The other thing I think about is how Smyth’s opera, “Der Wald” (“The Forest”), was the only work by a female composer produced at New York’s Metropolitan Opera for over a century. That was in 1903.

Anticipating the assertion that well-behaved women seldom make history, Smyth was driven to act up from the start. And who could blame her?

She managed to outmaneuver her father, a major general in the Royal Artillery. When he objected to her pursuit of a career in music, she studied privately. This culminated in an all-out battle, in the course of which Ethel’s will proved steelier than her dad’s. The result was that she was that she was able to attend the Leipzig Conservatory.

When the conservatory didn’t measure up to her expectations, she sought out Heinrich von Herzogenberg for further polish. Her travels also brought her into contact with Dvořák, Grieg, Tchaikovsky, Clara Schumann, and Herzogenberg’s friend, Johannes Brahms.

It was at a private performance of Brahms’ Piano Quintet, with the composer in attendance, that Smyth’s St. Bernard mix, Marco, burst through a door, toppling the cellist’s music stand, which, much to everyone’s relief, the notoriously prickly Brahms found hilarious. Later, when Tchaikovsky wrote to Smyth, he never failed to ask after Marco.

Her first piece to be played in public was her String Quintet in E major (1884).

Her first orchestral work, the Serenade in D (1889) – written with the encouragement of Tchaikovsky – is better than just about anything composed by Sir Hubert Parry (whose music I happen to enjoy) and much more compelling than the symphonies of Sir Charles Villiers Stanford. Smyth’s serenade is a symphony in all but name, with some pretty good tunes.

Even so, it was only in 1893, after her Mass in D was favorably received by George Bernard Shaw that her father’s objection to her chosen career began to thaw. (Shaw had declared the Mass “magnificent.”)

While she met with considerable success in her lifetime, as a woman, she was still often marginalized and had to push for almost everything. In her mid-50s, she began to lose her hearing. Undeterred, she commenced a second career as a writer, producing ten books. She was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1922 .

The next time a music director is looking for an alternative to Elgar (himself not exactly overplayed in this U.S.), he or she could do worse than to consider Ethel Smyth. The overture to her opera “The Wreckers” (1906) would make for a dynamic curtain-raiser.

“The Wreckers” was presented at Bard College, in a series of performances, under the direction of Leon Botstein, in 2015. Botstein led a concert performance of the piece at Carnegie Hall in 2007. Happily, the Bard production was filmed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6jvyTaDqkc

Smyth herself conducts the overture.

Happy birthday, Dame Ethel Smyth!

“March of the Women” (1910), sung here with more polish than it would have been in a prison courtyard.

PHOTO: Smyth rocks the boat

April 22, 2021
Stream Ethel Smyth’s “The Wreckers” Online

Bard College is now streaming its 2015 production of Dame Ethel Smyth’s “The Wreckers.”

This English seaside opera predates Benjamin Britten’s “Peter Grimes” by decades, a tale of doomed love set against the backdrop of plundering land pirates, who lure unsuspecting ships onto the rocks of coastal Cornwall. The “pirates,” in this instance, are common villagers who justify their misdeeds as righteous Methodists. (Alas, some things never change.)

“The Wreckers,” Smyth’s third opera, is a product of the so-called English musical renaissance, a flowering that took place around the turn of last century, after an alleged dearth of native talent that reached back centuries – tradition holds, since the death of Henry Purcell – a charge that really was without basis. In 1904, Germany had only just derided England as “Das Land ohne Musik” (“The Land without Music”). Ironic, then, that “The Wreckers” would be given its first performance there, in Leipzig, in German translation, in 1906.

Why the timidity, England? Smyth’s second opera, “Der Wald,” which also received its premiere in Germany, had made it as far as New York City’s Metropolitan Opera in 1903. It would be the only opera by a woman composer presented by the Met for over a century! Why no performances at home? Eventually, “The Wreckers” would receive its English premiere in 1909, under the direction of Sir Thomas Beecham.

Smyth was not only a formidable talent, she was a formidable personality. Few were the men who could stand up to this tweed-wearing, cigar-smoking suffragette. After Smyth was arrested for putting out the windows of politicians who opposed a woman’s right to vote, Beecham visited her in prison, only to find her leading her sisters-in-arms in an anthem she composed, “March of the Women,” which she conducted through the bars of her cell with a toothbrush.

Beecham would conduct “The Wreckers” again in 1934 to celebrate Smyth’s 75th birthday. Sadly, by then she was unable to enjoy it, as by that time she was stone deaf.

Leon Botstein led the first U.S. performance of the opera, with the American Symphony Orchestra, in New York City, as recently as 2007! These forces brought “The Wreckers” to Bard College, of which Botstein is president, and where he is co-director each summer of the Bard Music Festival.

This year’s festival, which was to have been devoted to another remarkable woman, Nadia Boulanger, has been postponed to the summer of 2021.

For now, enjoy Dame Ethel Smyth’s “The Wreckers”:

https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/ups-the-wreckers/?utm_source=wordfly&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2020-06-24-UPS-Wreckers&utm_content=version_A#the-wreckers

A talk about the opera, with Leon Botstein:

https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/ups-the-wreckers/?utm_source=wordfly&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2020-06-24-UPS-Wreckers&utm_content=version_A#opera-talk

June 24, 2020
Ethel Smyth Rebel Composer and Suffragette

Anticipating the assertion that well-behaved women seldom make history, Dame Ethel Smyth was acting up from the start. When her father, a major general in the Royal Artillery, opposed her entering a career in music, she studied privately, and then attended the Leipzig Conservatory. Her travels brought her into contact with Dvořák, Grieg, Tchaikovsky, Clara Schumann and Brahms.

Her “March of the Women” became the anthem of the women’s suffrage movement. When they locked her up for smashing out the windows of politicians who opposed the female vote, she led her comrades-in-arms in song, conducting them from between the bars of her cell with a toothbrush.

Later, in her mid-50s, she began to lose her hearing. Undeterred, she commenced a second career as a writer, producing ten books. She was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1922.

The always questing Leon Botstein revived Smyth’s most famous opera, “The Wreckers,” in a concert performance at Carnegie Hall in 2007. This summer, he will conduct a fully staged production at Bard College, as part of the school’s annual SummerScape festival.

Incredibly, Smyth’s opera “Der Wald,” written between 1899 and 1901, remains the only opera by a woman composer ever produced at New York’s Metropolitan Opera. That was in 1903.

Happy birthday, Dame Ethel Smyth (1858-1944)!

The overture to “The Wreckers”:

PHOTO: Smyth rocks the boat

April 22, 2015

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