Ethel Smyth
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- For people named Ethel Smith, see Ethel Smith (disambiguation).
Dame Ethel Mary Smyth, DBE [1] (23 April 1858 – 8 May 1944) was an English composer and a leader of the women's suffrage movement.
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[edit] Early career
She was born in London and studied music in Leipzig with Heinrich von Herzogenberg. Her 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.[1] 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.[2]
In 1922 she was created a DBE.[1] She was later a model for the fictional Dame Hilda Tablet in the 1950s radio plays of Henry Reed.[3]
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".[1][4] At age 71 she fell in love with Virginia Woolf, who, both alarmed and amused, said it was "like being caught by a giant crab", but the two became friends.[1]
Her hearing deteriorated in her later years, and she wrote little music. She died in Woking at the age of 86.[1]
[edit] Operas
- Fantasio - 1898
- The Boatswain's Mate - 1916
- The Wreckers - 1916
- Der Wald - 1920
- Fete Galante - 1923
- Entente Cordiale - 1926
See also: List of her works
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ a b c d e Abromeit, Kathleen A. (1989). "Ethel Smyth, "The Wreckers," and Sir Thomas Beecham". The Musical Quarterly 73 (2): 196-211.
- ^ Beecham, Thomas (1958). "Dame Ethel Smyth (1858-1944)". The Musical Times 99 (1385): 363-365.
- ^ Hold, Trevor (1993). "CD Reviews". The Musical Times 134 (1799): 43.
- ^ Wilton, Tasmin (2002). Smyth, Dame Ethel. glbtq: An Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Culture. Retrieved on January 8, 2007.
Categories: 1858 births | 1944 deaths | British composers | Romantic composers | 20th century classical composers | Opera composers | Light music composers | British suffragists | Dames Commander of the Order of the British Empire | Women composers | Feminist artists | Lesbian musicians | LGBT musicians from the United Kingdom | People from London | People from Surrey
