The rallying cry of Ethyl Smyth’s anthem The March of the Women was taken up by suffragettes all around the world, and she incorporated the tune in this overture from her rollicking 1914 comic opera.
Performed by the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Tianyi Lu, at its concert "A Women's Place"
Photo: ©Adrian Malloch/APO
The rallying cry of Ethyl Smyth’s anthem The March of the Women was taken up by suffragettes all around the world.
As a young woman, Ethyl defied her father’s wishes and pursued a career in music. And the British composer’s defiant spirit endured. In 1912 she was among a group of 100 feminists arrested for throwing rocks through the windows of parliament during a spirited protest.
Not long after that notorious incident, her friend Thomas Beecham paid her a visit in prison. There he heard Ethel’s march, sung by the suffragettes, and conducted by Ethyl from an upstairs window, using her toothbrush as a baton.
By the 1930s, Ethel had been made a Dame and was so well-respected as a composer that Beecham conducted a concert celebrating her 75th birthday at London’s Royal Albert Hall.
Ethel Smyth used some of the music from her march in the overture to The Boatswain's Mate. This 1914 comic opera features a wily widow and pub landlord, Mrs Waters, who manages out-manoeuvre all her masculine counterparts.
Recorded by RNZ Concert, Auckland Town Hall, 29 November 2018
Producer: Tim Dodd; Engineer: Adrian Hollay
