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

Anglican composers still wrote Latin-tex-
ted music, but important figures such as
John Stainer and Arthur Sullivan wrote
no Latin-texted works at all. Most of the
Latin-texted sacred music that did exist
used organ or was unaccompanied (e.g.,
Charles Villiers Stanford’s popular Op. 38
motets), although Hubert Parry wrote a De
profundis (1891) and Magnificat (1897) and
Stanford a Requiem (Op. 63, 1897) and Te
deum (Op. 66, 1898) using orchestra. Over-
all, the amount of Latin-texted music at
the time was dwarfed by choral works in
English, with oratorios on biblical subjects
being especially popular.
Smyth was not the first modern com-
poser in Britain to write a choral/orches-
tral Mass, but she was the first of only
three composers we now consider of ma-
jor significance to do so. Smyth’s Mass
was followed by Stanford’s Op. 46 Mass in
G (completed in late 1892) and Vaughan
Williams’s Cambridge Mass of 1899. Even in
this company, Smyth’s Mass stands out as
different, for Vaughan Williams’s work was
a Missa brevis composed as an academic
requirement and Stanford’s work was a li-
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turgical mass written on commission. In Ethel Smyth, 1903. Aimé Dupont Studio. www.ethelsmyth.org
contrast, Smyth intended her work for the
concert hall from the start. invited Smyth to Balmoral Castle to perform still more
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Smyth was well aware of musical preferences of of the Mass. The patronage of these two monarchs
the time, writing, “If I had chosen an Old Testament helped make the eventual performance of the Mass a
subject—say, Methuselah, or perhaps Joash King of society event.
Judah … one of the Three Choirs Festivals might have Despite accolades from leading musicians of the
jumped at it. But, strange to say, the everlasting beau- time after the premiere, Smyth still had to wait more
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ty of the Mass appealed to me more strongly.” She than thirty years until the second performance in 1924.
also recognized that, since the piece required a full or- Christopher St. John suggests of Smyth:
chestra, large chorus, and SATB soloists, “a huge and
complicated choral work is not a convenient item in a She was born at least twenty years too soon for
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choral season.” Fortunately, Smyth had the support the merits of her music to be immediately rec-
of both Queen Victoria and the Empress Eugenie, ognized by her contemporaries. Its vigour and
widow of Emperor Napoleon III of France; the latter rhythmic force, its intensely personal character,
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paid for the necessary publication of the music. The were something new in English music of the
Empress, a personal friend of Smyth’s, arranged for the early nineties, and the new … is always feared
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composer to play portions of the Mass during one of by the majority.
the Queen’s visits to the Empress. Queen Victoria then

12 CHORAL JOURNAL August 2025 Volume 66 Number 1