British Suffragette Composer Celebrated
with Carnegie
Hall Debut:
Dame Ethel Smyth
was an early champion of feminism and equality
by John
Pietaro
Dame Ethel Smyth, “The Prison”
Text by HB Brewster
The
Cecelia Chorus of New York with Orchestra
Mark
Shapiro, Music Director and Conductor
Chelsea
Shephard, soprano; Tobias Greenhalgh, baritone
Carnegie
Hall, May 11, 2018
Dame
Ethel Smyth, deceased some 74 years, has finally arrived to public
consciousness in the era of #MeToo, Stormy Daniels and annual Women’s Marches.
The bitter irony is that this spokeswoman of democracy, women’s liberation,
LGBTQ rights and radical cultural work has stood, at best, as a footnote of
late-Romantic period British music. In her time Smyth struggled against
conservative music academics who sought to have her disavowed, as much as the
flagrant sexism riddling paternalistic gentry. Born just outside of London, 1858,
Smyth was formally educated in English music colleges before traveling to
Germany where she embarked upon a close study of Brahmsian composition. Debuting
several early works by the 1870s, Smyth earned critical acclaim and yet
experienced the disdain of male musicians, culminating in the refusal by many to
perform the works of “a lady composer”.
Smyth
travelled throughout Europe over the last decades of the19th
Century, ever independent, composing prolifically. Her works in this period included an opera, Fantasio,
and her noted piece for chorus and orchestra, the Mass in D. She conducted her
own music in the concert halls of Germany, France and Britain, breaking new
ground in this decidedly male forum. While in Florence Smyth first encountered Harry
Brewster, an American expatriate with whom she’d hold a powerfully, visceral bond.
She called “HB” her soul-mate and greatest champion and together they explored Classical
Greek dramas, contemporary French poetry and philosophy. Brewster helped her
write the librettos of several operas but also embarked upon his own literary projects.
Among these was an 1891 work of fiction, the
Prison: a Dialogue, which metaphysically portrayed an innocently convicted
man living out his final days in solitary confinement. Brewster died in 1908.
Smyth
became a central figure in the British women’s movement, composing the theme of
UK suffragettes, “the March of the Women”, in 1911. Inspired by the leading
feminist, Emmeline Pankhurst, she enthusiastically defied police orders during
a rally for voting rights and was among a large group jailed for 60 days,
convicted of throwing stones at the windows of Parliament. It is said that as
her sister inmates sang the anthem, she conducted the proceedings through bars with
a jail-issued toothbrush. Smyth was an active member of the Women’s Social and
Political Union, a particularly radical branch of feminists, and spoke openly
of her lesbian lifestyle, no matter the Tory hysterics.
The
composer suffered crushing blows throughout her career, none more so than the
hearing loss which greatly curtailed her role as conductor. She found new
inspiration in the writing of essays and books and it was through this medium
that she befriended Virginia Woolf who also became a lover. In 1922, her
artistic merits were finally acknowledged by the British government which granted
her the Member of the British Empire honor and the title of Dame.
At age
72, in 1930, Smyth completed her last major composition, the Prison, a symphony
for soprano, bass, chorus and orchestra, adapted from Brewster’s novelette. With
this piece, she was able to symbolically realize the isolation she’d experienced
throughout much of her life, but refused to be paralyzed by. And with advancing
deafness, the remainder of Smyth’s existence was clouded by a more present
inner world than that which was outward. Still, she was able to successfully
conduct the world premiere of the piece at Edinburgh’s Usher Hall in February
1931, an act that must have given her the greatest sense of accomplishment: the
silence which rapidly encroached upon her was here confronted by Smyth’s own
resolve and core strength, much as the Prisoner character (the bass vocalist)
and his Soul (the soprano) interact to an end most powerful and moving.
With
her Carnegie Hall debut this month, Dame Ethel is posthumously brought to the
wider attention of what remains a male-dominated music industry. The Prison is
composed quite squarely in the late Romantic style, classically aligned,
meticulously plotted, but painted with emotional flourishes associated with the
back-to-nature philosophy of the latter 1800s. Bits of programmatic music,
character motifs, antiphon and flowing counter-themes offer an atmosphere that
both represents the protagonist’s sense of urgency as much as the confined stasis
of the singular setting. Throughout, the Prisoner and his Soul exchange
thoughts which lead toward his realization of life’s beauty and majesty, even
when marked by such repressive terms. “A great yearning seized me”, the
Prisoner sings devoutly. “I would like to go out once more among the living!
Can nothing of it all be good to others?” he ponders and asks what he would say
to those existing freely. His Soul responds: “Tell them that no man lives in
vain…” a concept well rooted in progressive, humanist philosophy.
The chorus’
role, as designated by the Greek dramatists Brewster so admired, is narrative
and speaks more to the audience than the characters down front. Acting as an
aggregate higher power or perhaps the conscience of society itself, the Voices state:
“We are full of immortality/This hour that is with us now/Will endure forever”.
More so, the protagonist’s growth is exemplified in Part II, the morning it
would seem, of his execution. He exclaims: “I disband myself/And travel on
forever in your scattered paths/Where ever you are there shall I be/I survive
in you!/I set my ineffaceable stamp/On the womb of time”, an homage to collectivism,
it seems, that holds an endearing similarity to the final writing of IWW labor
organizer, journalist and songwriter Joe Hill, unjustly executed in Utah seven
years after Brewster’s death. Hill’s “Last Will” alerted his followers to his
wishes for cremation, “And let the merry breezes blow/My dust to where some
flowers grow/Perhaps some fading flowers then/Would come to life and bloom
again”. But John Steinbeck’s masterwork, “The Grapes of Wrath”, offers a still more
poignant statement: “I’ll be all around in the dark. I’ll be everywhere you
look. Where ever there’s a fight so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there…”
And so
Dame Ethel Smyth, whose music accompanied the oppressed women of England in
their struggle for a truly democratic voice. A composer of great skill and
talent, a bold visionary in a time of profound reaction, Smyth’s rediscovery
may have occurred at just the right time to inspire a new generation of
feminist activists. On both sides of the Atlantic.
