Smyth the Prisoner

Synopsis

The British composer Ethel Smyth needed both talent and fierce determination to succeed in a professional musical career in her day. Born in 1858, she defied her father to study music in Leipzig. She became friends with Clara Schumann, Brahms and Dvořák. In 1903, her opera Der Wald was performed at the Metropolitan Opera. She also became a high-profile figure in the women’s suffrage movement, for which she was jailed briefly in 1912.

The premiere of her 64-minute vocal symphony, The Prison, took place at Usher Hall in Scotland on today’s date in 1931, when she was 73, and increasingly deaf. The text was by H.B. Brewster, who had been Smyth’s close friend and, perhaps, her lover, and is a dialogue between an innocent prisoner awaiting execution and his soul in search of spiritual peace.

In a New York Times interview, James Blachly, the conductor of the first recording of The Prison, suggests, “It’s a summary of her entire career. It’s a farewell. There’s a real sense of making peace with that, and also reconciling herself to the death of [Brewster,] her closest creative companion. It’s about love and life and loss and self-worth.”

Music Played in Today's Program

Ethel Smyth (1858-1944): The Prison; Dashon Burton, bass-baritone; Experimental Orchestra and Chorus; James Blachly, conductor; Chandos 5279

On This Day

Births

• 1743 - Italian composer and cellist Luigi Boccherini, in Lucca

• 1880 - American composer Arthur Shepherd, in Paris, Idaho

• 1906 - Welsh composer Grace Williams, in Barry, Glamorganshire

• 1912 - American band leader and arranger Stan Kenton, in Wichita, Kansas

• 1926 - Rumanian-born Hungarian composer György Kurtág, in Lugoj

Deaths

• 1605 - Italian composer Orazio Vecchi, 54, in Modena

• 1941 - Irish composer and arranger Sir Hamilton Harty, 61, in Brighton

• 1975 - Italian composer Luigi Dallapiccola, 71, in Florence

Premieres

• 1736 - Handel: cantata Alexander’s Feast, at Covent Garden Theatre (Gregorian date: Mar. 1). Also on the program were Handel’s Concerto Grosso in C, Harp Concerto No. 6 and Organ Concerto, No. 1.

• 1914 - Zandonai: opera Francesca da Rimini, in Turin

• 1923 - Sibelius: Symphony No. 6, in Helsinki, with composer conducting

• 1929 - Bartók: String Quartet No. 3, in London, by the Waldbauer Quartet

• 1932 - Copland: Symphonic Ode, commissioned for the 50th Anniversary of the Boston Symphony and conducted by Serge Koussevitzky. For the 75th Anniversary of the Boston Symphony, Copland revised this score and dedicated it to the memory of Koussevitzky; The revised version was premiered by the Boston Symphony conducted by Charles Munch on February 3, 1956.

• 1941 - Morton Gould: Spirituals for Orchestra, in New York City, conducted by the composer

• 1949 - Irving Fine: Partita for winds, in New York City, by the New Art Wind Quintet

• 1949 - Douglas Moore: opera The Emperor’s New Clothes, in New York

• 1961 - Stravinsky: Anthem (The dove descending breaks the air), in Los Angeles, Robert Craft conducting

• 1985 - Peter Maxwell Davies: Symphony No. 3, at Manchester’s Free Trade Hall, by the BBC Philharmonic, Edward Downes conducting

• 1990 - Daniel Asia: Symphony No. 1, by the Seattle Symphony, Christopher Kendall conducting

• 1999 - John Adams: Naïve and Sentimental Music, at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Los Angeles, by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, with Esa-Pekka Salonen, conducting.