“Historical Anthology of Music by Women”
One of the most original figures of the Victorian-Edwardian period, Ethel Smyth achieved international acclaim as a composer of opera. She was hailed by her contemporaries as the only woman to make “a name for herself in the field of opera.” Critics praised her works as “virile, masterly in construction and workmanship.” Yet despite their early success, most of her works remain unknown today.
Ethel Mary Smyth was the daughter of a major-general in the British army. With the begrudging consent of her family, she attended the Leipzig Conservatory, then considered the best European music school. After one year, she decided to study privately with the Austrian composer Heinrich von Herzogenberg, who was a close friend of Johannes Brahms. This connection enabled Smyth to make the acquaintance of both Brahms and Clara Schumann. Smyth’s works dating from her apprenticeship consist mainly of chamber music.
On her return to England, Smyth composed two orchestral works, a four-movement Serenade (1889) and the Overture to Antony and Cleopatra (1890), both premiered by August Manns at the Crystal Palace. Smyth’s most important work of this period was her Mass in D, which demonstrated her masterly control of a large musical structure. The turning point for the composer came when she showed her Mass to the great German conductor Hermann Levi. Impressed by her dramatic abilities, he urged her to write opera. From that time on, she devoted herself almost exclusively to musicodramatic composition.
In all, Smyth composed six operas and one symphonic work for voices and orchestra. In her first two operas, Fantasio (1898) and Der Wald (1902), she was clearly influenced by nineteenth-century German opera, particularly Wagner’s works. Smyth’s third and most important opera, The Wreckers (1904), reveals her British background, with its dramatic plot and evocation of the sea. The notable conductor Sir Thomas Beecham championed the work as “one of the three or four English operas of real musical merit and vitality.” Smyth collaborated with her close friend Henry Brewster on the libretto. The work was written in French (Les Naufrageurs was its original title), but ironically it never received a performance in that language. The first two productions took place in Germany, as Strandrecht. Smyth translated the work into English, and its British premiere, on May 28, 1908, under the direction of Artur Nikisch, was a concert version of the first two acts. Beecham conducted a complete stage production the following year, and in 1910 he included it in his debut season at Covent Garden.
The Wreckers is set in an eighteenth-century Cornish sea town at the time of the Wesleyan Revival. The economic survival of the town depends on shipwrecks deliberately caused by the townspeople by means of false beacons. Thirza, the young wife of the preacher, and Mark, a fisherman, are lovers who contrive to thwart the savage community. Caught by the Wreckers’ committee, they are condemned by a secret court to die in a sea cave. The scene presented here occurs at the beginning of the opera, following a hymn sung by the church congregation. A storm is up and the frenzied chorus sings of its plans to wreck a ship.
The music of this scene epitomizes Smyth’s style, with its colorful orchestration, dense contrapuntal writing, powerful theme, and impressive use of the chorus. The principal motive, found four measures after 33, appears at crucial moments in the opera. It pervades the overture as well as the climactic love duet and is reminiscent of the main leitmotiv of another opera of the sea, Wagner’s Der fliegende Holländer.
On the whole, The Wreckers must be viewed as an important predecessor to later twentieth-century British operas. Its portrayal of the sea, the integration of the chorus into the action, and its characterization of an isolated sea town demonstrate a common bond with one particular work—Benjamin Britten’s Peter Grimes.
Dame Ethel Smyth stands out as a crucial figure in the history of women in music. Besides her musical endeavors, she was a talented author who wrote candidly about herself and the many famous people she knew. She played an active role in the violent suffragist movement, and she later campaigned for the rights of women musicians. For her work as a composer and writer, Smyth was made Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1922. She received honorary doctoral degrees in music from the University of Durham in 1910 and from Oxford University in 1926. Her pioneering efforts as an outspoken composer, writer, and feminist paved the way for a younger generation of women in the field of music.
Recordings
Music of the Four Countries, Scottish National Orchestra, Alexander Gibson, cond. Ethel Smyth, Overture: The Wreckers. EMI-Odeon ASD 2400, 1968.
The Wreckers (complete opera). Rare Record Editions. SRRE 193-4.
Further Reading
Bernstein, Jane A. “ ‘Shout, Shout, Up with Your Song!’ Dame Ethel Smyth and the Changing Role of the British Woman Composer,” in Women Making Music. The Western Art Tradition, 1150-1950, edited by Jane Bowers and Judith Tick. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1986, pp. 304-24.
The Wreckers, Scene from Act I
Completed 1904. Printed by Universal Edition, Vienna, n.d., under the composer’s copyright.
We use cookies to analyze our traffic. Please decide if you are willing to accept cookies from our website. You can change this setting anytime in Privacy Settings.