The Life and Music of Alice Mary Smith (1839-1884), a Woman Composer of the Victorian Era: A Critical Assessment of Her Achievement

201 Pages·2010·7.98 MB·English

by  Ian Graham-Jones

THE LIFE AND MUSIC
OF ALICE MARY SMITH (1839-1884),
A WOMAN COMPOSER OF THE VICTORIAN ERA
A Critical Assessment of Her Achievement
Ian Graham-Jones
With a Foreword by
Roger Parker
The Edwin Mellen Press
Lewiston •Queenston• Lampeter
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Graham-Jones, Ian.
The life and music of Alice Mary Smith (1839-1884), a woman composer of the
Victorian era: a critical assessment of her achievement I Ian Graham-Jones; with a
foreword by Roger Parker.
p. em..
Includes bibliographical references, discography, and index ..
ISBN-13: 978-0-7734-1383-2
ISBN-10: 0-7734-1383-9
1. Smith, Alice Mary, 1839-1884--Criticism and interpretation .. 2 .. Women composers--
England--19th century--Biography.. I. Title.
ML410.S634G73 2010
780 .. 92--dc22
[B]
2010035836
hors serie ..
A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.
Front cover: Line drawing of Alice Mary Smith from Girls' Own Paper, January 1884 ..
Reproduced from the Kempe Papers by courtesy of Mrs. Venetia Carse, and with acknowledgements
to the West Sussex Record Office and the County Archivist
Copyright © 2010 Ian Graham-Jones
All rights reserved. For information contact
The Edwin Mellen Press The Edwin Mellen Press
Box 450 Box67
Lewiston, New York Queenston, Ontario
USA 14092-0450 CANADA LOS lLO
The Edwin Mellen Press, Ltd.
Lampeter, Ceredigion, Wales
UNITED KINGDOM SA48 8LT
Printed in the United States of America
On the death of Alice Mary Smith:
The works of Alice Mary Smith and Maude Valérie White are
grateful instances of musical art as opposed to the terrible squalor
of Claribels, Gabriels, Lady Arthur Hills, and the like …
St Stephen’s Review
13th December 1884
She was the forerunner in the race, and such an able one that
her example should lead her followers on to the highest
attainments with a constant cry of “Excelsior!”
New York Times
December 1884

iii
Contents
Foreword by Roger Parker. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
A Note on the Source Material. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . x
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi
1. Woman and the Craft of Composition: Britain 1850–1885 . . . . 1
‘Les Six’ – six women composers 3
The argument 8
Notes 16
2. Alice Mary Smith: Life and Reception . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
The early years 20
Courtship and marriage 22
The final years 25
Reception 28
Notes 32
3. Chamber and Orchestral Music 1: 1861–1867 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Societies and institutions 38
Chamber music: 1861-1864 40
Chamber music without listed performances: 1865-1868 45
The first symphony 48
Three concert overtures 55
Introduction and Allegro for piano and orchestra 61
Notes 64
4. Interlude 1: Operetta and Masque . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
‘Gisela of Rüdesheim’ 65
‘The Masque of Pandora’ 72
Notes 79
5. Chamber and Orchestral Music 2: 1869–1879 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Orchestras, festivals and societies 81
A second Endymion overture 83
iv
A third string quartet 85
Clarinet sonata or concerto? 88
A second symphony, the Alexandra Palace competition 94
Two popular concert overtures 98
The final orchestral works 108
Notes 109
6. Interlude 2: Anthems, Piano Pieces and Songs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
The five anthems 111
Piano music and miscellaneous pieces 113
Songs, duets and part-songs 116
Notes 126
7. The Last Choral Works: 1879–1884 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
‘Ode to the North-East Wind’ 128
‘The Passions’ 134
Two choral ballads for male voices 144
Notes 148
Postlude: ‘The Forerunner in the Race’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
Appendices
Appendix A Catalogue of works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
Works in modern editions 160
Discography
Notes
Appendix B Performances of principal works: 1861–1885 . . 161
Appendix C Glossary of persons mentioned in the text . . . . . 163
Select Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
v
Plates, Illustrations and Tables
Cover:
Line drawing of Alice Mary Smith from Girls’ Own Paper,
January 1884
Plates:
1. Alice Mary Smith . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
2. Alice Mary Smith . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
3. Frederick Meadows White, QC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
4. Mrs Alice Mary Meadows White . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Table 1: Principal Women Composers: 1840-1890 . . . . . . . . . . 17
Table 2: Smith – Meadows White – Kempe family chart . . . . . . 18
Illustrations:
First page of Symphony in C Minor (1863) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Part of full score of Overture: Jason (1879) . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
Front cover of the first edition of Maying (1870) . . . . . . . . 121
Front cover of Cupid’s Curse (1881) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
Part of letter from Charles Gounod . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
Part of a letter from Ebenezer Prout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

vii
Foreword
Professor Roger Parker
Ian Graham-Jones’s fascinating book on a forgotten woman composer of the
Victorian period makes us again and again aware of the accidents that can lead to
posthumous fame or posthumous neglect. Alice Mary Smith (1839-1884) indeed
makes an appearance in the major music reference books, but she does so in the
most perfunctory manner. The current edition of The New Grove, for example,
devotes just two paragraphs to her achievements and significance, and ends with
the words “The majority of her instrumental music remains unpublished and awaits
reassessment” (TNG, Vol 23, p. 565). As if in answer to the call, Graham-Jones
has now made that reassessment available in a pioneering monograph on the life
and works of this important figure from the British nineteenth century. He makes
clear that Smith was one of the most prolific and often performed women composers
of the entire period. Perhaps as important, he underscores the fact that she was one
of the very first women in Britain (or indeed elsewhere) to make serious attempts
at large-scale compositions such as symphonies and extensive choral works: a
significant innovation at a time when women composers were, when they emerged
at all, almost exclusively confined to writing music for the domestic spaces in which
for the most part they were confined.
Graham-Jones is uniquely qualified to take on this task: he was the
cataloguer of her extensive Nachlaß (a unique collection comprising many of her
works in manuscript) before finding it a permanent home in the archives of the
Royal Academy of Music; and he has also edited several volumes of her works for
publication. In this book, he considers Smith’s entire opus in some detail. One of
the great joys of the book is the presence of numerous lengthy musical examples
(often of unpublished works), allowing us to form our own judgements about the
works in question. He has, what is more, trawled through a host of written
documents, both manuscript and printed. These give some indication of the