Original version

BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

BBC Radio 3

Radio 3

Migrated podcast image for: Composer Of The Week

Composer of the Week

Music: Classical

Composer of the Week - Brand

An informative guide to composers' lives and their music.

An informative and accessible guide to composers' lives and their music.

Composer of the Week: Ethel Smyth (1858-1944)

Composer of the Week: Ethel Smyth (1858-1944): Episode 4: Political Alliances

Ethel Smyth (1858-1944)

Episode 4

Episode 4: Political Alliances

Political Alliances

BBC Radio 3 - Composer of the Week, Ethel Smyth (1858-1944), Political Alliances

Donald Macleod focuses on Ethel Smyth's association with the suffragettes.

Donald Macleod focuses on Ethel Smyth's association with the suffragettes and presents music from The Boatswain's Mate and The Wreckers.

Ethel Smyth and her association with the suffragettes, featuring music from The Boatswain's Mate and The Wreckers.

Accounts of Dame Ethel Smyth cast her as a doughty figure, unafraid to flout convention. Born into an upper class Victorian family, the fact that Smyth wanted a professional career in music is exceptional in itself. Two major choral works, several orchestral works, six operas and a significant body of chamber music, attest to her seriousness of purpose as a composer. However, the sheer gusto and number of other activities the ebullient Smyth pursued have tended to obscure her artistic reception. A keen traveller, she was a successful author, producing nine largely autobiographical books. A life-long champion of women's rights, among the causes she supported was Mrs. Pankhurst's "right to vote" campaign. Her competitive nature found a perfect partner in sport; she was often to be found riding to hounds, playing tennis matches or striding over the golf course. As one rather bemused contemporary musician remarked when he met her, she is "the most remarkable and original woman composer in the history of music".

Donald Macleod charts Ethel Smyth's involvement in women's suffrage. Inspired by meeting Emmeline Pankhurst, head of the Women's Social and Political Union, Smyth decided to take two years off her musical career to help support the fight for women's rights. Her activism famously led to her imprisonment for throwing stones through a suffrage opponent's window. In 1912, having resumed her music career, she began work on what's probably her most feminist influenced work, the comic opera, the Boatswain's Mate.

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Donald Macleod explores the life and work of composer Ethel Smyth

Donald Macleod explores the life and work of composer, author and women's rights champion Ethel Smyth

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Composer of the Week

Ethel Smyth (1858-1944)

Episode 4: Political Alliances

Genres

Brand

Series

BBC Radio 3

About BBC Radio 3