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Friday, March 20, 2020

Ethel Smyth - Mass in D; Overture to 'The Wreckers' (Sakari Oramo)


Information

Composer: Ethel Smyth
  • (01) Overture to 'The Wreckers'
  • (02) Mass in D

Susanna Hurrell, soprano
Catriona Morison, mezzo-soprano
Ben Johnson, tenor
Duncan Rock, baritone

BBC Symphony Chorus & Orchestra
Sakari Oramo, conductor

Date: 2019
Label: Chandos
https://www.chandos.net/products/catalogue/CHAN%205240

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Review

When John Steane reviewed Philip Brunelle’s Virgin Classics recording of Ethel Smyth’s Mass in D (1891, rev 1925) in August 1991, 100 years after its composition, he noted that its composer was one ‘whose name everybody knows and whose music nobody has heard’. He believed Brunelle’s recording (sadly nla) would ‘do something to remedy that, in fact a very considerable something’, though in the event I believe it helped reinforce Smyth’s name rather than foster a wider appreciation of her music. It was the coupling of her suffragette anthem, The March of the Women, that received air-time.

The Mass is by far the deeper, grander work, full of extraordinary music and, as Steane noted, considered by some to be her masterpiece. It is a remarkable, individualistic work, looking Janus-faced back to Bach and Beethoven, and forwards to Bax and Brian. This excellent new recording is the third the Mass has received that I know of (the other is a German performance on Audite). Oramo’s pacing is fairly swift, especially in the Kyrie, but never hurried. The larger forces of the BBC Symphony Chorus and Orchestra give the music greater heft, too, paying dividends in Chandos’s warmer, richer sound. Oramo’s soloists are also marginally superior, even if I still prefer Eiddwen Harrhy’s tone to Susanna Hurrell’s.

Oramo’s account of the Overture to The Wreckers is well groomed but fairly driven. Although close in duration to those of Alexander Gibson (reissued under Warner’s Classics for Pleasure imprint) and Odaline de la Martinez – in her recording of the full opera (nla) – the fast music is taken at an exhilarating lick only for the brakes to be slammed on in the lyrical second subject. The competition are more natural but there’s no denying the excitement Oramo generates with the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

-- Guy Rickards, Gramophone

More reviews:
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2019/Nov/Smyth_mass_CHSA5240.htm
https://www.limelightmagazine.com.au/reviews/dame-ethel-smyth-mass-in-d-bbcso-oramo/
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/oct/17/dame-ethel-smyth-mass-in-d-review
https://www.ft.com/content/1163c618-e068-11e9-b112-9624ec9edc59
https://theclassicreview.com/album-reviews/review-ethel-smyth-mass-in-d-bbcso-oramo/
https://artmusiclounge.wordpress.com/2019/09/28/sakari-oramo-conducts-ethel-smyth/
https://www.allmusic.com/album/dame-ethel-smyth-mass-in-d-overture-to-the-wreckers-mw0003311300
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ethel-Smyth-Wurttembergische-Phil-Reutlingen/dp/B0000268B4

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Ethel Smyth (22 April 1858 – 8 May 1944) was an English composer and a member of the women's suffrage movement. Despite that her father was very much opposed to her making a career in music, Smyth was determined to become a composer, studied with a private tutor, and then attended the Leipzig Conservatory, where she met many composers of the day. Her compositions include songs, works for piano, chamber music, orchestral and concertante works, choral works, and operas. Smyth was made a DBE in 1922, being the first female composer to be awarded a damehood.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethel_Smyth

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Sakari Oramo (born October 26, 1965 in Helsinki) is a Finnish conductor. He started his career as a violinist and concertmaster of the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra (FRSO), and studied conducting with Jorma Panula at the Sibelius Academy. From 1998 to 2008, Oramo was Music Director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, with which he championed the music of John Foulds in concerts and recordings. He was Principal Conductor of the FRSO (2003-2012), and is currently Chief Conductor of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra (since 2008) and the BBC Symphony Orchestra (since 2013).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakari_Oramo

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