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Almost Lost to History:

Ethel Smyth’s

Extraordinary Mass in D

HONEY MECONI

he ever-growing interest in women composers
has drawn increased attention to the music of

T British composer Ethel Smyth (1858–1944).
1
Glyndebourne and other venues have produced her best-
known opera, The Wreckers, while the Boston Symphony
recently programmed its overture. A complete recording
by the BBC Symphony and Chorus of Smyth’s path-

breaking opera Der Wald—the first opera by a woman ever
performed by the Metropolitan Opera—appeared in 2023;
the premiere recording of her vocal work The Prison won a

Grammy Award in 2022; and her choral March of the Women
continues to be the composition most closely associated
with the suffrage movement. Also receiving more frequent
performance is her extraordinary Mass in D, a work that
“inspires enthusiasm in the singers,” according to one of
2
its first champions, theorist Donald Francis Tovey. This
article explores the history and musical makeup of this
challenging and deeply rewarding work.

Honey Meconi
Arthur Satz Professor of Music
University of Rochester/Eastman School of Music
Founding Editor, Oxford Studies in Early Music
honey.meconi@rochester.edu

6 CHORAL JOURNAL August 2025 Volume 66 Number 1