Broadening the Repertoire, Ethel Smyth: Complete Piano Works

Born in London in 1858, Ethel Smyth was brought into to the world of music by her German governess, who introduced her to the music of Beethoven, Schubert, and Schumann. After a lengthy battle with her father, who did not want her to become a musician, in 1877 she refused to speak and went on hunger strike until she was finally allowed to study with Carl Reinecke in Leipzig. She was the first woman to be a student at the Leipzig conservatoire.

It is quite amazing that Smyth's piano works remained unpublished until 2003. All of them were written during her Leipzig study years, a period that Ethel Smyth herself described as the happiest time of her life. Here she met such musical giants as Brahms, Clara Schumann, Dvořák, Grieg and Tchaikovsky. It should come as no surprise that these encounters left stylistic traces in Ethel Smyth's piano works.

Smyth wrote three piano sonatas in 1877, all stylistically diverse. Haydn and Mozart, clearly inspired her sonata in C major, followed by the impassionate sonata in C sharp minor, which was inspired by the actress Marie Geistinger. The two-movement fragment in D major, reflected Ethel Smyth’s admiration for Brahms, concludes the sonatas. Most of the other piano pieces borrow their atmosphere and titles from Baroque models (dance movements, genre pieces) and are technically undemanding. They have been arranged in this edition in order of progressive difficulty.

Best known for her operas, and large symphonic works, this collection of Smyth's complete piano works helps to shed light on an often-overlooked part of the composer's oeuvre.

More Ethel Smyth