Ethel Smyth, Serenade in D.
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| John Singer Sargent: Ethel Smyth lived in the town (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
1.Allegro non troppo.
2.Scherzo: Allegro vivace - Allegro molto.
3.Allegretto grazioso - Molto vivace grazioso - Allegretto grazioso.
4.Finale: Allegreto con brio.
Sophie Langdon, violin.
Richard Watkins, horn.
BBC Philharmonic.
Odaline de la Martinez, conductor.
Ethel Smyth
(b. 1858, London, England; d. 1944, Woking, England)
Ethel Smyth was a twentieth-century British composer and a champion of women's rights and female musicians. During her lifetime, she composed symphonies, choral works (musical pieces written for a choir), and operas including The Wreckers,1906, and is most well known for The March of Women, an anthem for the women's suffrage movement. In 1922, she was named a Dame of the British Empire.
She studied Brahmsian musical composition (the romantic style of lyrical and classical music developed by the German composer Brahms) and music theory at Leipzig Conservatory in Germany beginning in 1877 and her sophisticated music elicited rave reviews. In 1889, she returned to London and developed talents in multiple areas of composition, culminating in an oeuvre that included orchestral pieces, choral arrangements, chamber music, and six operas. She earned acclaim for her performance of Mass in D, which was enthusiastically received in London in 1893.
