4th November Composer of the Week Dame Ethel Smyth

[Serial_Apologist]

Another cracking programme today,such lovely songs.

Indeed - and listening to the overture from "The Wreckers" I was struck by the adventurousness of some of the harmonic progressions, for an English composer in 1906.

[salymap]

Does anyone know the painting of DES in the London National Portrait Gallery.?

Painted by the American artist John Singer Sargent, she's seated at a piano, wearing a hat and smart clothes and a big smile.

I'd put it on here if I hadn't lost the postcard of her and if it were allowed.

Off topic, the Musicians' Gallery is full of good things, or was 50 years ago

[mercia]

is that this one ?

http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/john-singer-sargent/ethel-smyth-1901

I like this photo

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ipj8EydfTaM/Ta_qqLQXElI/AAAAAAAAD10/Ri7Tc3hJFIY/s1600/DameEthel.jpg

http://www.npgprints.com/image/40230/bassano-dame-ethel-mary-smyth

http://www.npgprints.com/image/40229/bassano-dame-ethel-mary-smyth

http://www.npgprints.com/image/419249/unknown-photographer-dame-ethel-mary-smyth

obviously liked dogs

[Hornspieler]

I'm really enjoying this COTW. My teacher, Aubrey Brain, often spoke about Dame Ethel, who of course wrote her concerto for Violin and Horn specially for Aubrey and Jean Pougnet in the 1930s, but apart from that little nonsense piece "Two Interlinked French Folk Songs" (I think that was the name. It was some time in around 1948 when I encountered it) I knew nothing of her music.

Surprising that she has remained comparative unknown and unsung for so long.
HS

[mercia]

here's an interesting photo - Henry Wood, Ethel Smyth & Aubrey Brain

http://www.geocities.co.jp/MusicHall/1921/aubrey/

[salymap]

Thanks a lot mercia, you're a star.

[Serial_Apologist]

here's an interesting photo - Henry Wood, Ethel Smyth & Aubrey Brain
http://www.geocities.co.jp/MusicHall/1921/aubrey/

I was tempted to ask, "Which one is Ethel Smyth?"

Seriously, great photos thanks, mercia.

[mercia]

I was tempted to ask, "Which one is Ethel Smyth?"

yes, that crossed my mind with this one

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ipj8EydfTaM/Ta_qqLQXElI/AAAAAAAAD10/Ri7Tc3hJFIY/s1600/DameEthel.jpg

[salymap]

You rotten lot. People didn't smile in photos 150 years ago and she was a country woman who dressed to suit herself.

Beecham would be proud of you - at least he was wrong about her love life

[Serial_Apologist]

You rotten lot. People didn't smile in photos 150 years ago and she was a country woman who dressed to suit herself.

Beecham would be proud of you - at least he was wrong about her love life

I think she suited to dress herself!

(But we all loved the masculinely-dressing Margaret Rutherford, I think!)

[Serial_Apologist]

People didn't smile in photos 150 years ago

The explanation I was always given for that was the longer exposures involved meaning that by keeping a straight face one was less likely to move than if smiling, rather than that Victorians never smiled.

[Bax-of-Delights]

If no-one has yet encountered "Hilda Tablet" you really should listen to this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLgkixlJttE

I notice all the other episodes are now on Youtube.

Marvellous!

[Sir Velo]

Which one is Ethel Smyth

The one with the 'tash isn't it?

[Serial_Apologist]

This is rather good on biographic detail:

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Jsmythe.htm

[mercia]

well, if Radio 3 thought Coleridge-Taylor's Hiawatha was worth broadcasting recently, I reckon that 1994 proms Wreckers is worth repeating

http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/archive/search/1990s/1994/july-31/10971