Essential Smyth
Born in 1858 in South London, Ethel Smyth broke through as a composer into a world almost exclusively dominated in the Victorian period by men. Having rebelled early on against the will of her family, she travelled to Germany to study in Leipzig, meeting such figures as Clara Schumann, Edvard Grieg and Johannes Brahms, a supporter of female composers. It was Tchaikovsky, though, who encouraged her to compose orchestral music, while later such important conductors as Bruno Walter, Arthur Nikisch and Thomas Beecham ensured that her works made it into concert halls.
Read more…In her early years Smyth composed chamber music in the late-romantic German manner, while also developing a love for the music of Bach. Her first orchestral work, the Serenade in D, was unveiled in England in 1890, and, aided by the support from Queen Victoria, her Mass in D proved a great success three years later. By the time of her death in 1944, though, she had slipped into relative neglect, and her works remain a rarity in the concert hall to this day.