Violin Sonata in a minor, Op. 7

Composer: SMYTH, Dame Ethel
  • This work was performed at the Leipzig Gewandhaus in 1887 by Fanny Davies and Adolf Brodsky.1
    • Ethel Smyth was based in Germany from 1877 (when she enrolled in the Leipzig Conservatory)2to 1890, when she returned to England.3
  • This work was published in Leipzig in 1887. Smyth dedicated it to Lily Wach (née Mendelssohn-Bartholdy), one of Felix Mendelssohn’s daughters.4
    • Smyth and Wach had been friends since they met at a musical gathering in Leipzig in 1877. You can read more about their friendship, and this piece, here. 

“The critics unanimously said that it was devoid of feminine charm and therefore unworthy a woman – the good old remark I was so often to hear again.”

Ethel Smyth, on the premiere of her Violin Sonata Op. 7, in her autobiography Impressions that Remained5

Sources

  1. Ethel Smyth, Impressions that Remained Vol. II (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1919), 162.
  2. Sophie Fuller, “Smyth, Dame Ethel,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed April 22, 2022,  https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000026038.
  3. Lewis Orchard, ”Ethel Mary Smyth DBE, Mus.Doc.: A Musical Timeline,” Exploring Surrey’s Past, accessed April 22, 2022, https://www.exploringsurreyspast.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/9180_timeline-final-version.pdf.
  4. “Violin Sonata, Op. 7,” IMSLP, accessed April 22, 2022, https://imslp.org/wiki/Violin_Sonata%2C_Op.7_(Smyth%2C_Ethel). 
  5. Smyth, Impressions that Remained, Vol. 1, 162.

Cut IDs

22985