Smyth String Trio

[eschiss1]

There have been several recordings, with overlapping/duplicated repertoire, of Smyth's chamber music.  However: she also wrote a string trio ("in D, Op.6"?), still in manuscript. Is it really so much below the quality of the other works that already-recorded works had to be multiply substituted instead (yes, I know not everyone loves those either, but... this is a relative, not an absolute statement, and is put to those who have seen it- it's @ the British Library, which is where I found the reference- not those who haven't?...)

Thank you

Here's a link to an ad for a manuscript facs of the trio. (1887, acc. to one source.)

[eschiss1]

(Ok, before I complain too much about an unperformed unpublished work, this neat-looking score of hers was published...

"Variations on "Bonny Sweet Robin" (Ophelia's Song). Flute, oboe (or Violin or Viola) and Piano." (composed 1925-7) by Oxford University Press in 1928... ) (see http://epubs.surrey.ac.uk/808382/ for some information about this work.) As it features Smyth writing in a  "modernist idiom" (! not that I mind, though that's not a sentence fragment I thought I'd be writing- good, good, just bad for here, I know) - ah well. Mentioned it for another reason, but ISUNow...

[Double-A]

It may have to do with the genre (I am talking about the string trio--I am assuming it is the standard combination of Vln, Viola, Cello).  Just look at how many professional (permanent of semi-permanent) string quartets exist and compare to the number of string trios.  This is because string trios are difficult to play in the sense that they are sounding fragile and almost brittle, lacking the fourth voice that would produce a "full" harmony (some composers compensate by using lots of double stopping, exacerbating intonation problems).  This sort of "thin" sound is not popular these days as people aim at "great" tones, full, juicy sounds (unfortunately IMHO, but such a HiFi sound can cover a lot of sins). Of course this problem is most difficult for performances in large halls, but even in recordings the sound is "incomplete".  The ideal venue for string trios and similar combinations (2 Vln, Viola or Flute, Vln, Viola etc.) is someone's living room with an audience of 20 or less, there they shine.

[eschiss1]

I see now that Furore-Verlag is the Kassel publisher of the photo-copy I mentioned above (USD $55 at "JW Pepper" resellers, score and parts- possibly partially typeset too- '"ed. B. Marquardt", 2008'.

Actually, a number of libraries do have this edition, I'd failed to notice, but Worldcat set me to it -

http://worldcat.org/oclc/609533653. The Worldcat description says "preface by" Bettina Marquardt. I may be able to interloan it from Northwestern or one of the others, if it's not a reference/does-not-circulate thing; I'll put in a request. (I do have two items already waiting for me @ interloan, 20th-c things- a book by a 1900-91 composer and a 1960s 9th symphony by a Danish composer whose surname started with H. But I think I'm allowed 5 active requests...) (Ah, the Northwestern copy -is- noncirculating... don't know if any of the others are at places that loan here.)

As to considerations of genre/medium/... - inclined to agree, on the whole, inclined to agree... and if the work is in manuscript and has not yet been typeset (and if a would-be typesetter finds themselves in a questionable copyright situ), no easier.