Unsung Composers

The Music => Recordings & Broadcasts => Topic started by: Mark Thomas on Friday 16 May 2025, 12:08

Title: Alice Mary Smith Overtures
Post by: Mark Thomas on Friday 16 May 2025, 12:08
BBC Radio 3 broadcast Smith's Lalla Rookh Overture this morning and it's available in our Downloads Board here (https://www.unsungcomposers.com/forum/index.php/topic,9798.0.html). It's a studio recording by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Emilie Godden. The programme's presenter said that the BBC is recording all Smith's overtures (maybe for Chandos?). There are already recordings (again in our Downloads Board) of her overtures to Jason & the Argonauts (https://www.unsungcomposers.com/forum/index.php/topic,9422.msg96415.html#msg96415) and Pandora (https://www.unsungcomposers.com/forum/index.php/topic,9574.msg98110.html#msg98110) (plus a couple of intermezzi) with different BBC forces, but IMSLP also lists overtures to Endymion and Viven and there are presumably others.
Title: Re: Alice Mary Smith Overtures
Post by: Mark Thomas on Saturday 17 May 2025, 08:20
Here's a full work list for Smith, taken from one prepared by Ian Graham-Jones, author of Life and Music of Alice Mary Smith (1839-1884), a Woman Composer of the Victorian Era: A Critical Assessment of Her Achievement (pub.2010). I don't know the difference between the two Endymion overtures:

Vocal:
Gisela of Riidesheim - operetta (1865)

The Masque of Pandora (completed only in piano score) (1865)
Ode to the North-East Wind for choir & orchestra (1880)
The Passions for choir & orchestra  (1882)
Song of the Little Baltung for male choir & orchestra (1883)
The Red King for male choir & orchestra (1884)
The Valley of Remorse, incomplete (presumed lost)

Unlisted songs for voice & piano and choral part songs

Orchestral:
Symphony in C minor (1863)
Symphony in A minor (1876)

Introduction & Allegro for piano & orchestra in C minor (1865)
Andante for clarinet & orchestra in D major (transcribed from the Clarinet Sonata - 1872)

Endymion I, overture in E major (1864)
Vivien, overture in C minor (probably an early work)
Lalla Rookh, overture in B flat major (1865)
The Masque of Pandora, overture (1865) & two intermezzi (orchestrated 1879)
Endymion II in E major (1869)
Jason, or The Argonauts & the Sirens, overture in D major (1879)

Chamber:
Piano Quartet No.l in B flat major (1861)
Piano Quartet [No.2] in E flat major
Piano Quartet No.3 in D major (1864)
Piano Quartet No.4 in G minor (1867)

String Quartet No.l in D major (1862  - listed as "No.2" on the score)
String Quartet [No.2] in A major (1870)
String Quartet [No.3] in E minor, Jubal-Cain

Piano Trio in G major (1862)

Melody and Scherzo for cello & piano (1869)

Clarinet Sonata in A major (1870)

Piano:
Fugue with chorale on "God Save the Queen" (1861)
Misc. fugues (1861)
The Vale of Tempo (1862)
Impromptu (1869)
Six short pieces (1873)
Fleus de Lys Quadrille - five short pieces
Title: Re: Alice Mary Smith Overtures
Post by: Richard Moss on Saturday 17 May 2025, 09:20
Mark,

Thanks for the upload (and apologies to all other uploaders whom, in my dotage, I've unintentionally not thanked for their efforts).  Apart from enjoying her music immensely, I find that I'm listening just out of enjoyment and her gender never enters into the equation (which I feel is as it should be, but others may disagree).  If any of her further, previously unavailable works become available they would really be appreciated.

Best wishes

Richard