Dame Ethel Smyth

Extract

It is a striking paradox that Ethel Smyth's music, though strongly wrought, demands for its true effect an exceptional care in performance. Indifferent playing of her more robust pages can make them sound both tedious and heavy-fisted; a first-rate interpretation of the Mass in D, so memorable under Sir Adrian Boult, can give likelihood to the fantasy that Beethoven respected her sufficiently to raise his hat. Her delight at that greeting would have been mingled with surprise. Despite her sturdy and justifiable belief that she had something worth-while to say, backed up by a pertinacity which had to be experienced to be believed, Ethel Smyth judged shrewdly the distance separating her from ‘great’ composers, and even in tribute this judgment must be upheld. It is quite a different thing to claim, nor ought one to claim less, that her best works contain qualities of undeniable greatness.