cover image The Memoirs of Ethel Smyth

The Memoirs of Ethel Smyth

Ethel Smyth. Viking Books, $19.95 (392pp) ISBN 978-0-670-80655-3

Dame Ethel Smyth (1858-1944) was a lively inhabitant of varied worlds, which she recreated in nine autobiographical volumes. In this abridgement of her memoirs by the former music critic of London's Finacial Times, we see her as an accomplished musician (composer of six operas), active in the suffragette movement with Emmeline Pankhurst, and as a woman capable of passionate attachment to other, often older, women. Smyth was accepted among the coteries of Brahms, Schumann and Mendelssohn and was an intimate of such luminaries as ex-Empress Eugenie of France and Queen Victoria, all captured in elegant, often amusing, vignettes. A long and eventful life is recorded here by an artist prominent in the revival of interest in British music of the earlier part of this century. (November 2)