Smyth, Ethel Mary 1858-1944

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SMYTH, Ethel Mary 1858-1944

PERSONAL: Born April 23, 1858, in London, England; died May 8, 1944; daughter of John Hall (an army major general) and Nancy (Struth) Smyth. Education: Studied music for seven years at Leipzig Conservatorium.

CAREER: Music composer, including of operas, concertos, and oratorios.

MEMBER: Women's Social and Political Union.

AWARDS, HONORS: Created dame, Order of the British Empire, 1922. Honorary degrees include: University of Durham, D.Mus., 1910; Oxford University, Mus.Doc., 1926; St. Andrews University, D.Litt., 1928.

WRITINGS:

autobiography

Impressions That Remained (also see below), two volumes, Longmans Green (New York, NY), 1919.

As Time Went On (also see below), Longmans Green (New York, NY), 1936.

What Happened Next (also see below), Longmans Green (New York, NY), 1940.

The Memoirs of Ethel Smyth (contains Impressions That Remained, As Time Went On, and What Happened Next), Viking (New York, NY), 1987.

other

Streaks of Life, Longmans Green (New York, NY), 1921.

A Three-legged Tour in Greece, Heinemann (London, England), 1927.

A Final Burning of Boats, Longmans Green (New York, NY), 1928.

Female Pipings for Eden, P. Davies (London, England), 1935.

Beecham and Pharoah, Chapman & Hall (London, England), 1935.

Inordinate Affection, Cresset (London, England), 1936.

Maurice Baring, Heinemann (London, England), 1938.

Composer of music, including Mass in D, 1893, The Wreckers, 1906, "March of the Women," 1911, and "The Boatswain's Mate," 1916.

Smyth's manuscripts are maintained at the British Library, London, England; the National Library of Wales; King College Modern Archive Centre, Cambridge University; the Hertfordshire Record Office; and the Walter Clinton Jackson Library, University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

SIDELIGHTS: Ethel Mary Smyth was the first female composer in Great Britain to compose large-scale operas, oratorios, and concertos, achievements for which she was awarded an honorary doctorate in music from the University of Durham in 1910. She was also well known as a supporter of women's rights, which became her main cause after she had established herself as a composer. Her skill as a composer and her belief in suffrage led Smyth to compose one of her best-known pieces, "March of the Women," the rallying cry for the militant suffrage movement that she wrote in 1911 as part of a welcome ceremony for twenty-one suffragettes released from prison. "March of the Women" would be followed by two other suffrage songs—"Laggard Dawn," which celebrates a new society bestowed by female enfranchisement, and "1910, a Medley," which describes a demonstration.

Smyth, the fourth child in a family including six daughters and two sons, was born to Major General John Hall Smyth and Nancy Struth in 1858. She had a stormy relationship with her mother for all of her life and struggled with her strong-willed father for permission to learn music after she first heard a Beethoven sonata in 1870. Finally, in 1877, the nineteen-year-old Smyth won the battle of wills; her father reluctantly allowed her to go to Leipzig, where she studied music for seven years and attached herself to the first of many women she would meet there, Elizabeth "Lisl" Herzongenberg, a friend of Brahms.

Smyth first gained wide recognition as a composer for her 1893 piece, Mass in D. Some years later, her opera The Wreckers was a huge success in England. Some critics have felt that the moral dilemma in The Wreckers parallels in some ways Smyth's quandary in falling in love with a married man. In The Wreckers a woman named Thirza finds herself living in a community where the people have made a practice of deliberately wrecking ships on their coastline and then plundering its spoils. Thirza rejects not only the villagers' traditions but also her pastor husband, whom she rebuffs in favor of Mark, who becomes her lover and co-conspirator in working to warn ships away from disaster. Thus, as with Smyth's rejection of Victorian conventions, Thirza rejects those of her neighbors and husband, and rightly so.

According to biographers, Smyth was converted to the women's rights cause after hearing Emmeline Pankhurst speak at a suffrage meeting in 1910. She originally planned to work for women's suffrage for two years, after which time she would return to writing music. Smyth identified personally with the idea that men repressed and suppressed women in society; she firmly believed that her musical works had not received the attention they deserved because they were written by a woman rather than a man. She was critical of male orchestra members and male conductors for not allowing women to progress in the field of music and composition. The high point of Smyth's years as a suffragist activist occurred in 1912, when she was arrested for throwing a stone through the window of the London home of anti-suffragist colonial secretary Lewis Harcourt. Smyth was sentenced to two months' hard labor, but served only three weeks. She did not participate in the arson campaign that began in 1912 and escalated to the destruction of property. Although she did agree with these extreme tactics in principle, she eventually regretted them. The last major political demonstration Smyth took part in was the funeral of Emily Davison in 1913.

World War I virtually ended Smyth's association with the Pankhursts. She began writing a series of reminiscences in 1919 with Impressions That Remained, and in 1922 was created dame commander of the Order of the British Empire. She also, tragically, suffered from deafness and hearing distortion; much of the remainder of her life was spent writing about her earlier years as a noted musician.