English composer and suffragette Ethel Smyth (1858-1944)
Ethel Smyth(1858-1944)
Dame Ethel Smyth was an English composer and a member of the women's suffrage movement.
Smyth was born in Sidcup, Kent, as the fourth of a family of eight children. Her father, John Hall Smyth, who was a major general in the Royal Artillery, was very much opposed to her making a career in music. Undeterred, Smyth studied with a private tutor, and then attended the Leipzig Conservatory. Her compositions include songs, works for piano, chamber music, orchestral works and operas.
From 1913 onwards, she began gradually to lose her hearing and managed to complete only four more major works before deafness brought her composing career to an end. However, she found a new interest in literature and, between 1919 and 1940, she published ten highly successful, mostly autobiographical, books.
Smyth was born in Sidcup, Kent, as the fourth of a family of eight children. Her father, John Hall Smyth, who was a major general in the Royal Artillery, was very much opposed to her making a career in music. Undeterred, Smyth studied with a private tutor, and then attended the Leipzig Conservatory. Her compositions include songs, works for piano, chamber music, orchestral works and operas.
From 1913 onwards, she began gradually to lose her hearing and managed to complete only four more major works before deafness brought her composing career to an end. However, she found a new interest in literature and, between 1919 and 1940, she published ten highly successful, mostly autobiographical, books.
Ethel Smyth adapted from Wikipedia and licensed by The Cultural Me under CC BY SA 3.0