Ethel Smyth Mass in D

[Alan Howe]

...coupled with her overture to The Wreckers, forthcoming from Chandos:
https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/8668141--dame-ethel-smyth-mass-in-d-overture-to-the-wreckers

[Gareth Vaughan]

I have no doubt this will be very good. However, though it may sound churlish, I personally would have rather seen Chandos produce a CD of "The Prison", the only major work of Smyth's unrecorded and one which requires forces similar to the Mass.

[MartinH]

This is good news indeed. Hopefully it's the start of a Smyth edition - The Prison included! I managed to convince an orchestra I work with to play the Wreckers Overture next March - thanks to the RCM we can get the music.

[dmitterd]

I can only add my voice to those glad to hear of this recording. Time to write to Chandos to ask they consider recording a Smyth edition? I think so!

cheers,
Daniel

[Jimfin]

I must agree that I would love to hear The Prison. With the forthcoming release of Fete Galante on Retrospect Opera, we are getting much closer to having Smith's major works available. A Chandos 'Smith Edition' could include some of the slightly shorter pieces like Antony and Cleopatra. Of course Chandos already released the serenade and the concerto  some years ago.

I can't get that excited by a new recording of the Mass, though. It's a fine enough work, but I listen far more to the operas and the concerto.

[Alan Howe]

For me Smyth's Mass is enjoyable enough, but it sounds like a compendium of other composers' choral works - Beethoven, Brahms, Verdi, etc. To think what Elgar, her exact contemporary, was writing in the same period - well, there's no comparison.

The work is very vigorously conducted by Oramo, but the soloists are only average, with the exception of that excellent mezzo, Catriona Morison. If only Boult or Barbirolli had recorded this with, say, Heather Harper, Janet Baker, Robert Tear and John Shirley-Quirk. One can dream...

[Kevin]

You must listen to Stanford's Mass on Lyrita, you won't be disappointed.

[Alan Howe]

I've got it. Relevance?

[Kevin]

You sounded disappointed with the Smyth mass so I suggested another Mass by another unsung english composer which is better IMO.

[Alan Howe]

Oh, I see. Thanks. That's a much better piece by a much better composer (ducks!)

[Gareth Vaughan]

I prefer to say it is a better piece by a better (and very different) composer. But I still want to hear The Prison, he complained sulkily.