Ethel Smyth

Ethel Smyth played a crucial role in redefining the status of women in British classical music during the early 20th century. She composed prolifically, especially in the fields of chamber music, orchestral music and opera—genres that male composers then dominated. Smyth was born in Sidcup in 1858. She studied in Leipzig, leading her to a distinctly German style, although later travels, especially to Italy, broadened her influences. Her richly orchestrated and vibrant Mass in D established her early reputation following its successful premiere at the Royal Albert Hall in 1893. Smyth was also a leading member of the suffragette movement, and her composition “The March of the Women” (1911) became its official anthem. Despite later being imprisoned for her activism, in 1922, she became the first female composer to be awarded a damehood. From the mid-’20s, her musical activities were restricted by increasing deafness. But her music continued to be performed; Thomas Beecham led a grand concert for her 75th birthday. Smyth considered her most important works to be her six operas. Her most successful was The Wreckers, which premiered in Leipzig in 1906, while Der Wald (1899–1901) was the first and only work by a woman to be staged at New York's Metropolitan Opera for over a century. In her later years, Smyth turned to writing and published nine volumes of memoirs before dying in 1944.