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