smyth

Dame Ethel Mary Smyth DBE (April 22,1858 - May 8, 1944) was an English composer and member of the women's suffrage movement. The fourth of eight children, Smyth showed a keen interested in music as a career. Her father, a major general in the Royal Artillery, was not particularly supportive, though that didn't stop her from pursuing music anyway. Smyth studied...

Dame Ethel Mary Smyth DBE (April 22,1858 - May 8, 1944) was an English composer and member of the women's suffrage movement. The fourth of eight children, Smyth showed a keen interested in music as a career. Her father, a major general in the Royal Artillery, was not particularly supportive, though that didn't stop her from pursuing music anyway. Smyth studied...

Dame Ethel Mary Smyth DBE (April 22,1858 - May 8, 1944) was an English composer and member of the women's suffrage movement. The fourth of eight children, Smyth showed a keen interested in music as a career. Her father, a major general in the Royal Artillery, was not particularly supportive, though that didn't stop her from pursuing music anyway. Smyth studied...

Dame Ethel Mary Smyth DBE (April 22,1858 - May 8, 1944) was an English composer and member of the women's suffrage movement. The fourth of eight children, Smyth showed a keen interested in music as a career. Her father, a major general in the Royal Artillery, was not particularly supportive, though that didn't stop her from pursuing music anyway. Smyth studied privately, and then attended the Leipzig Conservatory. She wrote orchestral and choral works, chamber pieces, operas, and works for piano.  Sadly deafness brought her musical career to an end, but between 1919 and 1940, she found herself an author, writing ten successful books. Continue reading →

Dame Ethel Mary Smyth DBE (April 22,1858 - May 8, 1944) was an English composer and member of the women's suffrage movement. Continue reading →

A few weeks ago, we took a look at the Cello Sonata of Ethel Smyth, an English composer of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Today we look once again at her writing for strings, this time the String Quartet in E minor, from 1914. Continue reading →

Female composers have historically struggled for recognition in a field dominated by men, even in the modern world. Looking back into the 19th and early 20th centuries, we see even more of a struggle. Such was the case of Dame Ethel Smyth, an English composer who was active as a composer primarily in the late 19th century, with a limited composition output in the early 20th century as she slowly lost her hearing. Today we look at her Cello Sonata in A minor, Op. 5, composed in 1887. Continue reading →