Great Composers: Ethel Smyth

[@MartinDellaVecchia]

Thank you for this. Very intresting. Just saw Smyth’s bust at the national portrait gallery in London and then did some further reading before landing on this page - glad I did!

[@Lee30000]

Great bio. I love her quintet for strings, 2 violin, 1 viola, 2 cellos.

[@rebeccaclarkesociety1780]

Lee, that's a quintet.

[@MusicMatters1983]

Great video - thanks! I enjoyed learning more about Dame Smyth. Just a note: she didn't train to work the radios, she trained as a radiographer and worked in a hospital in France during the 1st WW. Will look forward to enjoying your other videos.

[@SorenHighwind]

Great video! I've actually just recently learned about Ethel Smyth and started listening to her music. I think my favorites so far are her Serenade in D and the Violin/Horn Concerto in A. I'll have to set aside some time for her Mass in D, too.

[@janburris2773]

Very interesting and informative as they all are. Thank you.

[@zacharycoronado6749]

I'm relatively new to this channel, but I have a request. I don't believe you have covered Leo Ornstein on this channel. He has written some delightful compositions that are so very emotionally relatable. His beauty is like that of Vasily Kalinnikov. Highly recommend

[@ClassicalNerd]

You're in luck-the fourth video I ever made was on Ornstein [watch?v=2uCpHar1_dw]. The channel has come a long way since then (in terms of depth of coverage and in production quality); since he's one of my personal favorite composers, I had covered him early on.

[@archierice333]

love her string quartets

[@SydiusVideo]

thank you

[@ErinFlatFingers]

hey just stumbled upon your videos and they're really really good! i love learning about classical music and music history. just wondering where you get all your information because this is really cool. also did/are you studying(ing) music in uni? if so, what was your specialization?

[@ClassicalNerd]

I get a lot of my information from either the books you see behind me or through doctoral dissertations and masters' theses. They're well-researched and generally include interesting information not always found in official biographies or on the web. I've also gleaned interesting tidbits from discussions with my professors. I'm currently a sophomore student of music composition, but unofficially, I consider myself as much a music historian as a composer.

[@ErinFlatFingers]

that is so interesting. i won't start university until the year after next, but i'm actually debating between whether i should study composition or music history when i get to that part as both subjects interest me greatly. do you have any thoughts on that, because this is really stumping me. haha. anyways, i can't wait to see your future videos and any other projects you have coming. they're fantastic!

[@ClassicalNerd]

If you're studying composition, then you'll have the opportunity to take as many music history courses as befits your schedule. If you're studying music history, it's much harder to arrange composition lessons. Coming from a current composition student, that might seem a bit biased, but part of what I like about it is that it keeps one's options open. My music history professor studied violin for his undergrad and went on to musicology in grad school, and moving to history at the graduate level is much easier than moving to composition. I know some folks who have designs on the latter, and it's much harder because grad schools love seeing the wide swath of pieces as one would get on a senior recital, and if you don't study composition, it's nearly impossible to get recordings. I feel like this has gotten a bit too preachy in the composition direction and I wouldn't want to unduly influence your decision, but hopefully I was able to provide some illumination on this matter from an "inside" perspective.

[@ErinFlatFingers]

oh my goodness, i just saw this. anyways, thank you for your insight. that's really awesome. now onto another question because you fascinate me haha. i'm just wondering out of the books in the background, which one(s) did you personally find to be the most interesting?

[@ClassicalNerd]

Tough question! I'd say the books on Brahms, Beethoven, Cowell, Grainger, Liszt, Ives, and Ornstein would be my top echelon. I can't cull it down further because the books are so very different: - Both the Brahms and Beethoven are by Jan Swafford, whose biographical style is simply impeccable. - Cowell, Grainger, and Liszt all led interesting lives, and their authors really do a great job in illuminating them (even if Bird's book on Grainger is a bit dated in light of more recently uncovered facts.) - Ives is an incredible figure and I'll inevitably find any book on him interesting, so that might be a bit biased. - Ornstein is just an incredible read from start to finish; the first chapter is as if pulled from the script of an incredible spy movie. If I had to pick just one-which is _incredibly_ hard-I might just have to go with that one. As for the top shelf, it's primarily reference books and so it's hard to judge, but Slonimsky's _Lexicon of Musical Invective_ is delightful, as is Harold Schonberg's _The Great Pianists._