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The original manuscript of the complete Mass in D by Dame Ethel Smyth has been discovered in the Special Collections and Archives of the University of Liverpool.
Smyth (1858-1944) was a hugely significant figure in British history. She was the first woman to be made a Dame for composition, the composer of six operas, a militant suffragette, and friend – sometimes lover – to royals, nobles and celebrities. She composed the suffrage anthem March of the Women for the Women’s Social and Political Union, memorably conducting a performance of it through the bars of her cell at Holloway prison. Her personal and political life, which included relationships with Emmeline Pankhurst and collaborator Henry B. Brewster, has made her an important figure in LGBTQ+ history.
The 1891 Mass in D for choir, soloists and orchestra was one of her breakthrough works, first performed in 1893 with the support of Queen Victoria. The original score was thought lost since 1924. Professor Lisa Colton, Head of the Department of Music, recognised the significance of an entry in the University of Liverpool’s archival catalogue, immediately suspecting that it could be the full autograph score that had been considered lost.
“This is a really exciting find”, Colton says. “It is in Smyth’s unmistakeable handwriting and notational style, and includes copious notes to copyists, conductors and performers.” Smyth experts Dr Hannah Millington, Dr Amy Zigler and Dr Leah Broad verified that the handwriting in the manuscript is Smyth’s own.
"From her handwriting to the use of coloured pencil for editorial changes to the pasted corrections, this score is consistent with the many other scores I've examined. It's clearly Smyth's hand," said Zigler, who is Assistant Professor of Musicology at UNC Greensboro.
“Smyth is one of the unsung legends of British music, and the rediscovery of this score will tell us so much about the history of one of her most important works”, says Broad, Smyth’s most recent biographer (Quartet: How Four Women Challenged the Musical World). “It shows how little Smyth has been appreciated in music history that the significance of this manuscript has only now been recognised – but how incredible to now have access to this slice of history that was thought lost for good.”
The work was first completed in 1891, and revived for performance in 1924 in both Birmingham and London, conducted by Sir Adrian Boult. It is partly because of these 1924 performances, which meant a great deal to Smyth, that the manuscript came to be in Liverpool, as part of an archive donated to the university by the conductor. A dedication at the front of the Liverpool manuscript suggests that Smyth gave the score to Boult as a gift: ‘To Adrian Boult, who, after it had lain for 31 years in the grave, splendidly brought this Mass to life again – the original score is offered by his old friend, Ethel Smyth (March 1938)’.
“Smyth had to work exceptionally hard to secure first and subsequent performances of her music”, explains Colton. Although Smyth’s music was ambitious, accomplished and imaginative, the very fact that she was a woman – in a musical world in which the major institutions were controlled by men – created enormous structural barriers. An unpublished letter from Smyth, written in 1927 and now stored in the front of the Liverpool manuscript, laments how her Mass was overlooked for performance in comparison with contemporary works by men: “If that Mass had been written by Parry or Stanford!!! ... well! There it is!”.
For further information, please contact Professor Lisa Colton: Lisa.Colton@liverpool.ac.uk.