Image: Malcolm Crowther<\/p>\n\n\n\n
26th<\/sup> January 2023<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since the 1990s, Odaline de la Mart\u00ednez has enjoyed a demanding conducting schedule, working with some of the world’s elite orchestras and ensembles. She was the first woman to conduct a BBC Prom at the Royal Albert Hall in 1984, and has returned to conduct several concerts there since \u2013 most notably in 1994, with a special BBC Proms performance of Dame Ethel Smyth\u2019s opera The Wreckers<\/em>, which was recorded by Conifer Records in the UK and released by BMI records in the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mart\u00ednez first learnt to conduct under the guidance of Jan Harrington at Indiana University in Bloomington. In 1976, whilst studying at the Royal Academy of Music, Mart\u00ednez went on to found her own ensemble, Lontano (lontano.co.uk), with whom she has performed and broadcast all over the world, whilst also working as resident conductor of the London Chamber Symphony and the European Women’s Orchestra.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mart\u00ednez is also much in demand as a guest conductor, appearing frequently with leading orchestras worldwide and throughout Great Britain, including all the BBC orchestras and ensembles (BBC Symphony, BBC Philharmonic, BBC NOW, BBC Scottish, BBC Belfast, BBC Concert Orchestra, and the BBC Singers). She has also conducted, amongst many others: the San Diego Symphony Orchestra, and New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, the Australian Youth Orchestra, the Natal Philharmonic (South Africa), the Aarhus Symphony (Denmark), the Orquesta Filarmonica de Cali (Colombia), the Canberra Symphony Orchestra, Radio-Television Orchestra of Brazil, the Kansas City Symphony, the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, the City of London Sinfonia, the Kitchner-Waterloo Symphony (Canada), the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra, Orquesta Filarm\u00f3nica de la UNAM, Mexico City, the Britten Sinfonia and the Vancouver Chamber Orchestra.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In addition to frequent broadcasts for the BBC TV and radio, Mart\u00ednez has recorded over 40 CDs for her own record label, Lorelt (Lontano Records), which she founded in 1992, as well as appearing on other major labels such as Summit, BMI, and Albany Records in the United States; Chandos, Metier, Retrospect Opera, SOMM, NMC and Conifer Classics in the UK; and Da Capo in Denmark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mart\u00ednez is a Trustee of the Mornington Trust, which has been responsible for community and educational work in London boroughs since 2000. The charity was involved in a eight-year project working with Roma, Gypsy and Traveller communities in the East of London.<\/p>\n\n\n\n —<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s great to be speaking with the <\/em>pioneering Smyth interpreter. I understand that you came across Ethel Smyth\u2019s music via the musicologist Sophie Fuller\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Yes, Sophie is brilliant. There was a festival called the Chard Festival for Women in Music [held in Somerset between 1990 and 2003], and they asked me to put together an orchestra of women. I didn\u2019t know that many female composers at the time, so I talked to Sophie about it and she recommended Smyth, in particular her Serenade in D. I went to Universal and got the score. They only had the string parts \u2013 we got a grant to create the wind parts. Years later I did an edition, which you can buy today from Lontana records (www.lorelt.com<\/a>). It\u2019s an edition that I sell really cheaply because I want people to get it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What pieces by Ethel Smyth have you recorded?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019ve recorded The Wreckers<\/em>, as well as conducting it at the Proms (that is her third opera of six). Then there was the Violin and Horn Concerto, Serenade in D, The Boatswain\u2019s Mate<\/em> (the fourth opera), and F\u00eates Galante <\/em>(her last one). I also recorded one piece \u2013 4 Songs<\/em> \u2013 for the CD Songs and Ballads<\/em>. In this particular version they were sung in English, but I\u2019ve also conducted the French version a few times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You also want to conduct The Prison<\/em>. Is there any news on that?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m working hard! I wish there were news on that. It has a lot of gravitas, but I think it\u2019s a brilliant piece. Chandos has already released it on CD, and won a Grammy, but I\u2019ll keep trying to get it performed at the Proms. Maybe it\u2019s been avoided because people think she wrote it while she was in prison.[1]<\/a> But there was a lot of Smyth performed last year at the Proms [2022], so that\u2019s nice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Conductors often talk about certain characteristics that are tricky or challenging about a specific composer\u2019s music (e.g. Sir Roger Norrington on Schumann in the last issue). When you\u2019re preparing Smyth\u2019s music, does it present quite specific challenges?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Gosh. No, I just study the score in the same way I always would. I look at the principal parts, the accompaniment parts, the orchestration, and I look at the material to see what is repeated. The way I study a score depends on the style<\/em> of the music. I look at Smyth\u2019s music in the same way that I\u2019d look at any other late Romantic (late nineteenth or early twentieth-century) music \u2013 it\u2019s very different to how I would look at a more contemporary score. I like to think that I understand her style and choices of orchestration \u2013 she was a brilliant orchestrator. Most of all I look for things that may prove tricky in rehearsal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The overture to The Boatswain\u2019s Mate<\/em> doesn\u2019t quote anything from the opera, instead it quotes two tunes, one being The March of the Women <\/em>that she wrote for the suffragettes as they marched into the Royal Albert Hall. It uses them again and again. That\u2019s quite original \u2013 during the Haydn\/Mozart period into the early Romantics, composers would usually quote melodies from the opera in their overtures. OK, once you get to the Twentieth Century people don\u2019t always follow that idea, but in general when people write overtures to an opera they use melodies from the opera itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She\u2019s clearly a fantastic orchestrator, she includes such beautiful touches\u2026 and I particularly love the unusual combination of violin and horn in her concerto.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s one of the last works she wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yes, it sounds far more modern, and I don\u2019t think there is another violin and horn concerto out there \u2013 an amazing combination.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Is that at all tricky to balance?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n No, it\u2019s not tricky, but I actually suspect there was a rewrite. I have the original Concerto for Violin, Horn and Orchestra score and the first two movements are very clearly in Smyth\u2019s typical handwriting. But if you look at the third movement it looks like it has been re-copied \u2013 it\u2019s the same instrumentation, but in completely different handwriting. I don\u2019t know if it that\u2019s because she made changes, or because nobody could read her handwriting (although I doubt that because it was very clear). That\u2019s something to research into in the future: whether she rewrote the third movement of the Violin and Horn Concerto. The first and second movement are very much what I know to be Smyth. The third movement, with the original material always returning, sounds a lot more like she was drawing on the horn concertos of composers like Mozart (he wrote four) and other composers of the period before her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I found a 1958 Home Service Radio Documentary for Ethel Smyth\u2019s centenary online. It featured Sir Thomas Beecham,[2]<\/strong><\/a> and he spoke very highly of Smyth.[3]<\/strong><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n But he also said that she was very difficult, and \u2018a perfectionist. She demanded an inordinate amount of time for preparation and rehearsals, and didn\u2019t always succeed in getting them, because she was not exactly the soul of tact in securing the desired results\u2026 she generally succeeded in alienating the sympathy, if not the respect, of most people around her\u2019 (13m45s-14m15s).<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Yes. After the first performance of The Wreckers <\/em>in Leipzig, she was really unhappy because the Musical Director [Richard Hagel] had taken chunks out of the score, including a big section of Act III. She was so angry that she didn\u2019t want them to do it again, even though the audience loved it and she\u2019d had a standing ovation. The next performance was going to be in Prague, so late one morning she took all the parts and the score, and went off to Prague with them, making any further performances in Leipzig impossible. Some people (including Smyth) believed that was the reason why it didn\u2019t get performed at the Royal Opera House for a long time. She got a very bad reputation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Are there still inconsistencies in those parts?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Oh no. Before I conducted The Wreckers<\/em> for the BBC Proms, the Director, Sir John Drummond, was very generous. I told him there were lots of inaccuracies in the score and lots of parts that couldn\u2019t be read. So he actually assigned an editor to work on it. First of all this editor edited my full score, and then the parts \u2013 I would say the parts are now accurate. A student also worked with me to copy the English \u2013 she used white tape to copy it all under the singing part. So I was actually able to read what they were singing \u2013 a lot of it was illegible beforehand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n White tape \u2013 far more common back in the 1990s!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Yes, and it was white tape I could remove, so it was very easy for her to write the English underneath. But Act 3 of the orchestral score is still very hard to read (and I suspect remains so), and because of that I had to use the vocal score a lot when I was rehearsing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Did the score you work from have any cuts?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The score I used was a copy of the original score used for performances of the opera in Germany \u2013 the one that Smyth approved of. The only difference is that the editor provided by the BBC Proms corrected mistakes in consultation with me and used these corrections to make the parts in 1992. I wanted to keep it so I bought it from Universal for \u00a3300, in those days that was a lot of money. So the BBC library had one score that had been corrected and I had a copy. That\u2019s the score that I conducted from.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Did you use the original French libretto?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n No, it was the German one \u2013 there are some issues with the French libretto. She originally wrote the opera in French \u2013 the librettist, even though he was American, was born in Paris and spoke French before he spoke English. At the time they thought that Andr\u00e9 Messager <\/strong>was going to be running the Royal Opera House. As it turned out he didn\u2019t, and so she decided to write it in German, which then also became the English version. The original French is not complete, it has quite a few pages taken out and there are some major differences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I went to see the Glyndebourne production of the French version of The Wreckers<\/em> in 2022. One of the characters in the German version was called Avis (the two main characters are Thirza and Mark). Avis had a very small role \u2013 it\u2019s just clear that she\u2019s in love with the fisherman, Thirza\u2019s lover, and is jealous. That was it. However, if you listen to the French version, Avis\u2019s role becomes so huge that it\u2019s larger than Thirza\u2019s (and Thirza\u2019s role is made a lot smaller). This takes away from the fact that it\u2019s an opera about two lovers (as well as the sea, outsiders, and all the subject matters that Britten used later on, which were originally found in Smyth). It doesn\u2019t make sense, it\u2019s like night and day! As a result the whole thing is lopsided, and I think that\u2019s why Smyth dropped the French version and went back to work on the German one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There were parts of the opera that were missing. There were sections where all that was available was a tune, perhaps with a piano part \u2013 so it was rescored. I didn\u2019t have a score, but sitting in the audience I recognised parts that had Smyth tunes but were not orchestrated in her style.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I get it. It\u2019s strange, sometimes it seems as if academics\/performers etc. dig further into the previous versions or editions of a piece, thinking they\u2019re getting closer to the composer\u2019s original intention. But actually they might have abandoned them for a reason and didn\u2019t want that to be the definitive version at all.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Correct. She had a chance to look at it again and see that Avis\u2019s role was far too large, which would have tilted everything the wrong way. In the German\/English version Thirza had a major role and that gives it the right balance. It\u2019s about the two lovers, not about Avis who was in love with the fisherman but had nothing to do with him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sir Adrian Boult also featured on the Home Service centenary tribute I mentioned earlier.[4]<\/strong><\/a> He conducted her Mass in D in Birmingham in 1924, and said \u2018I think probably in the last two months before the performance I had a postcard every day, dealing with some detail that she\u2019s thought of, or some new idea\u2019 (59m08s-59m18s).<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n She did that with all her scores. I have a score of the Serenade in D that I got from Universal Edition. It was a photocopy of a score that was used by her. She changed things \u2013 she made little additions in French, German and English. Yes, she was always making alterations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Boult went to say that in the final orchestral rehearsal, Ethel sat in the gallery and he shouted up to her, \u2018\u201chow fast do you want this movement to go today<\/em>, Dame Ethel?\u201d She was a bit changeable\u2019 (59m18s-59m31s). Can her music be quite tricky or changeable with regard to tempo?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n There would have only been slight changes, but not a massive amount \u2013 not like the difference between running and walking. In the Serenade in D there was no tempo marking, so when I made my own edition of the piece I suggested a tempo marking that I thought suited it best, having performed it many times. Smyth would just write something like Allegro<\/em> or Allegro molto<\/em> \u2013 she would always include a musical tempo but not a metronome mark. It was the same in the score for the Mass in D \u2013 there would have been a musical term. If you look up the word Allegro<\/em>, it will give you a few little metronome notches that fit within that \u2013 so it wouldn\u2019t have been tremendously changeable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Also, being a Mass, voices are very easily affected by the building they\u2019re in. She stated that it\u2019s a concert mass rather than a church mass, but if it were<\/em> performed in a church it would affect the tempo. You have to consider how the tempo feels in the venue. I think she was easily changeable, but only within a few metronomic notches, there wouldn\u2019t have been huge changes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Boult also felt that Smyth didn\u2019t excel with large-scale form and that she worked better with text or a libretto mapping out the structure for her (59m49s-1h00m00s). Do you agree with that?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Well, the Serenade in D has no words but has a beautiful shape \u2013 the form is excellent. The first movement shows that she knows how to use sonata form. The second movement has a trio, and she knew how to use that. So she was very well versed in how to write symphonic works \u2013 I think she just felt more at home writing music that involved the voice. So I don\u2019t know what Boult would have meant by that. He probably meant that she wrote a lot of music with text, and as a result she felt comfortable with it \u2013 but that\u2019s just the nature of the composer. Some composers are better with symphonic works, and some are better with works that include the voice. I speak for myself \u2013 I write operas, and music for choir and songs. It doesn\u2019t mean that I cannot write works that are instrumental.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It would have made more sense for him to say that she was much more at home using the voice. I think she wrote opera because she could sing and because she had a really good sense of drama on stage. If you listen to her Mass it\u2019s also extremely dramatic. Anyone who read or heard the score knew right away that she should be writing opera. Hermann Levi encouraged her and she did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yes. Well, the full opening statement was \u2018she hadn\u2019t got, of course, a tremendous power of organisation of a big structure. I think it\u2019s true to say that that quality is rare in the female sex\u2019 (59m32s-59m45s).<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Oh, please.<\/p>\n\n\n\n (laughs) There is also a great recording of her reading her own memoir on Brahms (called <\/strong>I Knew Johannes Brahms<\/em><\/strong> \u2013 broadcast in 1925)<\/strong>.[5]<\/strong><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Yes, she wrote about Brahms. Some people say she studied with him, but she didn\u2019t, she was a \u2018friend\u2019. But he wasn\u2019t very nice to her. Well, he didn\u2019t like women did he? He never got to know women in a deep, personal sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s right. Ethel was a conductor herself.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n She was. To my knowledge so far, she mostly conducted her own music, she didn\u2019t conduct a lot else. A lot of composers do that. I\u2019ve got programme notes for concerts she conducted, but she would only conduct her own piece and then another conductor would conduct everything else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Are there any recordings of her conducting her own work?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I think there are<\/em> recordings available, but I don\u2019t know from whom \u2013 you can check with the BBC. I think the Retrospect Opera recording of The Wreckers<\/em> might have included something of her conducting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019ve got pdf copies of some of the British Symphony Orchestra programmes, for concerts when she was conducting her own music with them. I\u2019ve even got a photograph of her in front of the British Women\u2019s Symphony Orchestra in London \u2013 you can get more information from the University of Leicester library. I\u2019ve also found an article (from the Sunday Times dated March 26th 1933) where Smyth was quoted giving her response to a concert of theirs conducted by Grace Burrows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fantastic! What have been the most challenging moments or aspects of conducting Smyth\u2019s music?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Well, at first I was trying to understand why her music had been so neglected. I discovered that Smyth had an Austrian publisher: Universal Edition, founded in Vienna. In 1938, when the Nazis moved into Austria, Ethel was so against it that she travelled all the way to Vienna and removed the scores from Universal. They were no longer her publishers, they were her agents. So when her music was performed, Universal couldn\u2019t charge publisher fees, only agent fees and as a result no money was invested in keeping her parts in good condition. That\u2019s why the parts of The Wreckers<\/em> (and a lot of her other music) were in terrible shape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I have the only score of the Overture to Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra<\/em> that has been found \u2013 the only one! I\u2019m creating a new edition, but somebody actually found a set of parts of another version of the overture for military band. They sent me the parts; I compared them and they\u2019re different to my score, it\u2019s a new version. Now I\u2019m getting the original score copied, and I\u2019m going to have a second version copied, based on the additional parts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You have done such amazing work with this, what an excavation project\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Well, that\u2019s very kind, thank you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In an interview you gave with Presto Music in 2020 you made an interesting comment regarding the promotion of female composers moving in cycles.[6]<\/strong><\/a> You explain how their profile increased a lot in the UK after women got the vote, and then again alongside the changes in the 1960s. There is also a resurgence now.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Yes, there is a surge now in the Twenty-First Century. Women have stood up for themselves and people are now trying to find women composers, conductors etc. How long this will last I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Do you have any sense of where Ethel Smyth\u2019s music will be situated once this new phase settles down?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m actually writing a chapter about Smyth\u2019s legacy and all of the pieces I\u2019ve done for the Cambridge Companion to Ethel Smyth<\/em>\u2026 The fact that we\u2019ve now got recordings makes all the difference. That\u2019s the key. People are able to go back and listen to it, and once they listen they can make their judgement. In my opinion, we are not able to give contemporary music written today a good judgement because we\u2019re affected by everything around us. In two hundred years time people will look back at the things that affected the repertoire of this period and have a better sense of what is strong. But I think people today looking back a hundred years to Smyth\u2019s music are now accepting and agreeing that she was a great composer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bibliography\/Recommended Reading<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Collis, L. Impetuous Heart: The Story of Ethel Smyth<\/em> (William Kimber & Co. Ltd. 1984)<\/p>\n\n\n\n St. John, C. Ethel Smyth: A Biography<\/em> (Longmans, Green & Co. 1959)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Smyth, E. Impressions that Remained: Memoirs of Ethel Smyth <\/em>(Brousson Press 2008)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Smyth, E. The Memoirs of Ethyl Smyth<\/em> (Faber and Faber 2009)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ethel Smyth: I Knew Johannes Brahms<\/em> broadcast on the National Programme at 10pm on 27th December 1935<\/p>\n\n\n\n https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=8zbCRjA9wJ8&t=483s<\/a> (accessed 19th<\/sup> January 2023)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ethel Smyth, A Centenary Tribute<\/em> First broadcast on the BBC Home Service on 20 April 1958 at 10pm, two days before the actual centenary. Narrated by Dennis Quilley https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=MP_qrXdKdq8&t=3585s<\/a> (accessed 20th<\/sup> January 2023)<\/p>\n\n\n\n [1]<\/a> Smyth was one of the 109 suffragettes who responded to Emeline Pankhurst\u2019s call to throw stones at the windows of the homes of any cabinet ministers who opposed votes for women. She was arrested and served two months in Holloway Prison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [2]<\/a> https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=MP_qrXdKdq8&t=3585s<\/a> (Sir Thomas Beecham is featured 0m24s-16m38s).<\/p>\n\n\n\n [3]<\/a> \u2018Ethel was a composer, in a certain way, of originality. Not only of originality, but she was a composer of spirit, vigour, with a talent for emphasis, accent or what you might vulgarly call \u2018guts\u2019 \u2013 qualities or merits that were not shared by many composers at the in England. Our composers for the most part have been a placid, contemplative and dreamy lot\u2026 Well, everything Ethel did was quite otherwise\u2019 (9m15s-10m06s).<\/p>\n\n\n\n [4]<\/a> https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=MP_qrXdKdq8&t=3585s<\/a> between 53m49s-54m09s, 57m07s-57m54s, and 58m12s-1h00m42s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [5]<\/a> https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=8zbCRjA9wJ8&t=483s<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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