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Almost Lost to History: Ethel Smyth’s Extraordinary Mass in D

Biography
Ethel Smyth was born into an up-
per-class British family; her father was a
major general. Inspired by a governess
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who had attended the famed Leipzig
Conservatory, she decided at the age of
twelve that she, too, would study there.
After overcoming her father’s objections
(women of her social class did not pur-
sue professional careers in music), she
enrolled at the Conservatory in 1877 to
study composition with Carl Reinecke.
Unhappy with her instruction at the
Conservatory, however, she switched
to private lessons with Leipzig-based
composer Heinrich von Herzogenberg,
whose wife was a close friend of Brahms.
Smyth accordingly met Brahms (and
occasionally turned pages for him) as
well as numerous other important musi-
cians such as Clara Schumann, Edvard
Grieg, and Tchaikovsky.
Smyth returned to England after
more than a decade based in Europe,
although she continued to travel fre-
quently on the continent. She produced
a number of early publications, includ-
ing her cello and violin sonatas (Opp.
5 and 7, respectively), but her first ma-
jor composition was the Mass in D. She
then turned her attention to opera, pro-
ducing six works in three languages be- Photo 1. Ethel Smyth, March of the Women, 1911.
tween 1892 and 1924, as well as choral, The British Library, Public Domain
vocal, chamber, and orchestral works.
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Nevertheless, her compositional output was less than valuable portrait of musical and cultural life in both
one might expect from so gifted a composer. A gregar- Britain and on the continent during her lifetime.
ious and outgoing personality as well as a keen sports-
woman, Smyth led an active social life to the noticeable Origin and Reception
detriment of her productivity. External factors affected of the Mass in D
her composition as well. For a good two years, her main Smyth composed the Mass in D during a period of
focus was the suffrage movement (Photo 1), after which religious fervor brought on by her relationships with
World War I affected her deeply, making composition the wife of the Archbishop of Canterbury as well as
almost impossible. Added to all of this was her increas- the devoutly Catholic Pauline Trevelyan. Reading
ing deafness. The result was that Smyth began a second Trevelyan’s copy of The Imitation of Christ led Smyth
career as an author during the war, publishing a series to embrace the Anglican High Church and compose
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of memoirs and other nonfiction books that provide a the Mass, which was dedicated to Trevelyan. And that

8 CHORAL JOURNAL August 2025 Volume 66 Number 1