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

An Imperishable Heritage: British Choral Music from Parry to available, Novello’s revised piano/vocal score from
Dyson (2012); and she appears only in the revised 2022 1925. Like many older scores and even some recent
edition of Dennis Shrock’s Choral Repertoire, not the ones, it lacks measure numbers and employs not-espe-
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787-page original 2009 edition. cially-appealing fonts for both text and music. Stems
are occasionally missing for some notes (e.g., the first
soprano pitch at Letter T on p. 79). More significant is
Preparation for Performance the use of the old-fashioned quarter-note rest that is a
One can offer various reasons for Smyth’s slow start mirror version of the eighth-note rest. Conductors will
in entering the repertoire. The most obvious one is that, likely need to point this out to singers so that they can
even though women composers have been producing make the adjustment to an unaccustomed notational
excellent music since the Middle Ages, each has been practice as quickly as possible. For this article, Figures
essentially forgotten after her own time. Smyth’s book 1, 2, 3, and 6 have been re-inscribed, but Figure 4 is
Female Pipings in Eden is about precisely the precarious reproduced directly from the score that singers would
position of women in the arts and her own experienc- use in performance, thus highlighting the very different
es of prejudice and misogyny; she was well aware of look of this earlier score.
the resistance her music encountered because she was The following musical examples highlight various el-
a “woman composer.” Only with the advent of sec- ements of Smyth’s typical musical style in the Mass that
ond-wave feminism did a sustained attempt to reclaim especially deserve conductors’ attention.
women’s musical history arise. Even today, composi- Smyth shows a striking tendency to begin motives or
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tions by women composers receive fewer performances long notes on weak beats in a measure. Figure 3 on the
than those by men. next page, from the Credo, shows an example of such
Significantly, though, the Mass in D has been con- unexpected rhythmic placement. The soloists are con-
sidered difficult: Christopher St. John, Smyth’s first bi- cluding their section in cut time with an Andante tempo.
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ographer, noted this, as did Tovey. In writing about The music then switches to common time and “allegro
a different choral work by Smyth, no less a figure than energico.” The imitative choral entries on “Qui cum
Gustav Holst, a superlative composer for choirs and a patre” are all on weak beats, however, with the rhythmic
choir director himself, said, “Why, oh why is Hey Nonny displacement compounded in the alto part in the first
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No so hard!” In fact, Hey Nonny No is in many ways measure of the bottom system by the commencement
far easier than the Mass. The work’s rhythms are of a whole note on beat two. The same unexpected
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straightforward, its text underlay is overwhelmingly rhythmic layout is found earlier in the movement in the
syllabic, and its texture lacks any contrapuntal artifice. “Dominum et vivificantem” section. Conductors need
It is only the harmonic writing that makes Hey Nonny extreme clarity in their beat and cues at such points.
No challenging. In discussing Smyth’s vocal writing in Figure 4 on page 16, taken from the Gloria, shows
general, Elizabeth Wood states, “Her music challenges multiple tendencies in Smyth’s writing (page 31 of the
an untrained voice, for it requires great strength and vocal score; note the missing quarter rest in the final
agility; even trained singers have complained of its measure of the bass). We see again Smyth’s use of weak-
technical risks.” 34 beat entries. At the beginning of the bottom staff, the

The Mass in D, however, is no more difficult than sopranos have an extended high g that begins on the
2
other major choral/orchestral works, although con- weak beat of the measure (the meter here is 2/2). It is
ductors choosing to program the work should be aware far more common in choral writing to begin extended
of certain things to watch in preparation for perfor- notes (i.e., whole note or longer) on the strong beat of
mance. First, until recently, the orchestral parts for a measure, most often the downbeat. This practice has
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the Mass were error ridden, a fact that hardly made a venerable tradition dating back to the fifteenth cen-
performance more enticing. Fortunately, the parts were tury, where the tactus provided strong and weak beats
redone in 2020, eliminating one performance chal- in the musical pulse. Smyth goes against that practice
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lenge. But choruses still must use the one choral score in numerous places throughout the Mass. Conductors

14 CHORAL JOURNAL August 2025 Volume 66 Number 1