In 2024 I was awarded my doctorate for my thesis, ‘An individual, not an echo’: Identity and Expression in the Early Vocal Works of Dame Ethel Smyth (1858–1944).

Abstract

Dame Ethel Smyth (1858–1944) was a British composer, writer, and social activist who made significant contributions to many musical genres, from vocal, chamber, and piano works, to operas and larger choral compositions. This thesis examines the vocal and choral works of Smyth’s early period (1877–1891), which are often overshadowed by her operas and the songs from the middle of her career (1892–1914). By looking beyond Smyth’s identity as a suffragette and operatic composer, and considering her life and musical output before these tropes became prevalent, the thesis provides a more nuanced account of the early part of her career. In doing so, it highlights the importance of these vocal and choral works and their impact on Smyth’s compositional trajectory.

Beginning with Smyth as a writer, the thesis considers how her autobiographical publications have influenced the direction of scholarship and shaped our interpretation of her life and music. It also presents a revised biographical sketch of the composer, re-evaluating aspects of her identity and elucidating how Smyth’s social network influenced her compositions. Chapter Two addresses her earliest published song collections — the Lieder und Balladen, Op. 3 and Lieder, Op. 4 (c. 1877) — exploring the impact of Smyth’s musical education and social network in Leipzig. Musical readings of her Lieder show that these songs are early examples of her interest in narrative and drama, a compositional trait that she would develop throughout her career.

Chapter 3 presents the first study of Smyth’s eight-movement cantata, The Song of Love, Op. 8 (1888), reclaiming a severely neglected work. This chapter investigates for the first time the context surrounding The Song of Love and a biographical reading of the cantata suggests that it may be read as an expression of her feelings for the writer and philosopher Henry Bennet Brewster (1850–1908). Drawing on unpublished correspondence, this interpretation of the work foregrounds her relationship with Brewster and offers a broader sense of her sexual identity than is typically given. Finally, Chapter 4 investigates Smyth’s relationship with religion within the context of her Mass in D (1891), examining the potential motivations behind the work’s creation. An alternative reading of the Mass suggests that Smyth may have composed it as an act of redemption, widening the biographical lens through which the work is often viewed.

My research was supervised by Dr Róisín Blunnie and Dr Barbara Dignam.
I would like to express my sincere gratitude to them for their guidance and support throughout my 4 years of study.

Publications

”1910′: Ethel Smyth’s Unsung Suffrage Song’, The Musicology Review 10, (2021), 55–76.

‘Ethel Smyth’s Leipzig Circles: Henschel, the Herzogenbergs, and Brahms’, Nineteenth Century Music Review Special Issue (in progress)

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Undergraduate & MA Research

I was awarded a first class honours from Keele University in 2016 for my BA in Music and completed an MA in Music at Oxford Brookes University in 2019. My dissertation, Ewige Freude: Seeking Solace in Johannes Brahms’s Opp. 13, 17 and 45/II, explored the themes of death and comfort in a number of Johannes Brahms’s choral works. It was awarded the Postgraduate Music Dissertation Prize from Oxford Brookes University in December 2019.