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Memoirs of Ethel Smyth

Ethel Smyth
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A01=Ethel Smyth
Author_Ethel Smyth
Category=DNBA
Composers
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eq_biography-true-stories
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eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
Faber Finds
Feminism
Opera
Pioneers
Suffragettes
Women

Product details

  • ISBN 9780571243266
  • Weight: 576g
  • Dimensions: 153 x 234mm
  • Publication Date: 21 Aug 2008
  • Publisher: Faber & Faber
  • Publication City/Country: GB
  • Product Form: Paperback
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Description

Dame Ethel Smyth (1858-1944) was an exceptional woman in an age rich in strong personalities. Best known for her opera The Wreckers, her music, long neglected, is gradually winning new friends. A feminist, intrepid traveller and sportswoman, she wrote nine volumes of autobiography, vividly recounting a life packed with incident.

Aged nineteen, in the face of fierce opposition from her father, she went to Germany to study and 'plunged joyfully into the dear old sea of German music which surged about the feet of Brahms', befriending Schumann's widow, Clara, and the composer Heinrich von Herzogenberg and his wife, Lisl, the first of many women to whom Ethel was passionately attached.

Her writings, abridged by Ronald Crichton, and including a catalogue of her music, are full of brilliant portraits - Brahms, Mahler, Beecham, Emmeline Pankhurst and Queen Victoria - all described in uncompromising detail. Numerous anecdotes range from hurling a brick through a cabinet minister's window, resulting in two months in Holloway prison - where she was observed, leaning through the bars, conducting her March of the Women with a toothbrush - to an Egyptian visit where she sought out a hermaphrodite in order to make an anatomical examination.
About Ethel Smyth
Dame Ethel Smyth (1858-1944) was a composer and leading member of the Suffragette movement, for whom she composed 'The March of the Women', which became their anthem. Her works included chamber pieces, symphonies, choral works and operas, most notably The Wreckers. Her music is currently enjoying a revival and her Concerto for Horn and Violin was performed at the 2008 Promenade Concerts. Ronald Crichton (1913-2005) was for many years on the staff of the British Council, before becoming music critic of the Financial Times, a post he held during the 1960s and 1970s. He was the author of several books, including Manuel de Falla: Descriptive Catalogue of His Works (Chester Music, 1976), and he abridged and introduced The Memoirs of Ethel Smyth (Viking, 1987).

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