Piano
SKU:
BR.EB-9450
Sonatas, Individual
Piano Pieces, Variations
- Urtext. Composed by
Dame Ethel Mary Smyth.
Solo instruments;
Softcover. Edition
Breitkopf. Romantic;
Late-romantic. Sheet
Music. 96 pages.
Breitkopf and Haertel #EB
9450. Published by
Breitkopf and Haertel
(BR.EB-9450).
ISBN
9790004189276. 9 x 12
inches.
It is quite
amazing that the piano
works of the English
composer Ethel Smyth had
remained unpublished
until 2003. All of them
were written during her
Leipzig study years after
1877, a period that Ethel
Smyth herself described
as the happiest time of
her life. In Leipzig, she
met such musical giants
as Brahms, Clara
Schumann, Dvorak, Grieg
and Tchaikovsky. It
should come as no
surprise that these
encounters left stylistic
traces in Ethel Smyth's
piano oeuvre.Smyth wrote
the three piano sonatas
in 1877, yet they are
stylistically diverse:
Smyth raced through a
kind of musico-historical
evolution. Her point of
departure was Haydn and
Mozart, who clearly
inspired her sonata in C
major. It was followed by
the impassionate sonata
in C sharp minor, which
was inspired by the
actress Marie Geistinger.
The two-movement fragment
in D major, reflecting
Ethel Smyth's admiration
for Brahms, concludes the
sonatas.Most of the other
piano pieces borrow their
atmosphere and titles
from Baroque models
(dance movements, genre
pieces) and are
technically undemanding.
They have been arranged
in this edition in order
of progressive
difficulty.
It is
quite amazing that the
piano works of the
English composer Ethel
Smyth had remained
unpublished to this day.
She wrote all of these
pieces during her years
of study in Leipzig,
after 1877.
Ethel-Smyth
