“A WOMAN COMPOSER”

New Zealand Times, Volume LII, Issue 12199, 25 July 1925, Page 14

“A WOMAN COMPOSER”

DAME ETHEL SMYTH: AN IMPRESSION - If the exigencies of typesetting turn my title for this article into "A Woman Composer,” I shall* dread the consequences. For the designation which, above all others, the soul of Dame Ethel Smyth abhors is “woman” this or that (says a writer in the "Westminster Gazette”). “Composer," tout court, is how she describes herself. Which is probably why she had such a fight for recognition by those already established as such. Men do not feel kindly disposed towards women who claim to do as well as themselves in their own line of business. - Talk about the bitternoßs of the National Union of Engineers towards the Women’s Engineering Society? Why, it was feeble in comparison with the deadly hatred that stirred the bile of men composers and conductors whenever the composer of "Der Wald” sought to get a hearing for her work. QUEEN VICTORIA’S PATRONAGE Not even Queen Victoria’s influence could diminish that spleen. True, Ethel Smyth had not yet become a M us. Doc. of the University of Durham when she «her Mass in D to the old Queen. e had had all her musical training at Leipzig and other places on the Continent, whence came all the singers and instrumentalists then idolised by the British public. j 1 rather fancy that fashion in musical festivals had something to do with the prolonged cabal against Ethel Smyth. So many men composers sought their opportunity at these musical tourneys that to get into the lists atwdl meant a good deal of intrigue and wire-pulling, and they were not going to stnnd any woman lessening their chances. However, that is an old story now, but nol without its prejudicial reflex action even to-day, as anyone who reads current musical criticism can tell.

A GENIUS FOR FRIENDSHIP 'l only met Dr. Ethel Smyth once, and that was for a brief moment at the After Dinner Club two or three years ago. I had just read her "Impressions That Remained,” and was eager to meet its author. The impression that remained with me after that meeting was of a tall, somewhat big-boned woman, uninterestingly clad, who had no use for casual acquaintances, however much genius she had for friendship. There are four operas and a dozen other musical compositions to Dr. Ethel Smyth's credit, and two books of autobiography. "Streaks of Life," as well as "Impressions That Remained.” It is an illuminating sidelight on the British temperament that while she has long been - recognised abroad for the genius she is, it took those two excursions into literature to focus public attention in this country on her creative powers in the much more difficult aft of musical , composition, and to bring her at long last to Covent Garden in the height of the grand opera season.

“Kol Nidrei,” as arranged” by M Bruch, is familiar to all concert-goers as a solo for violin, and generally for violoncello. All the great ’cellists include it in their repertories. It is one of the most moving pieces ever played, and one of the most religious in feeling Its association with the Hebrew services held on the Great Day of Atonement will always secure for “Kol Nidrei” the respect of Jew and non-Jew alike. It in sung, of course, but as it is played tr Pabfb Caßals, the renowned ’cellist recording for Columbia, it sounds as if wne really being sung by a human voMl That is the great feature in Cabal's playing—he has the "singing tone,” which imports to the ’cello an eloquence surpassing, as some hold, even that of the violin in the hands or a supreme artist The reproduction of this wonderful hymn for the gramophone is flawless, like its performance The record occupies both sides of a 12in disc Edouard Qendron furnishes a fine pianoforte accompaniment.