Born in London in 1839, Alice Mary Smith was the daughter of Elizabeth Lumley and Richard Smith, a wealthy lace merchant. Her earliest published work, the song “Weep no more!,” brought Smith to public attention in 1859. Her first large-scale work, the Piano Quartet in B-flat Major, was performed just two years later, and in two more years she premiered the plaintive, passionate, and playful Symphony in C Minor. Not only was the symphony a landmark in her quickly developing career, it was also the first known symphony to be written by a British woman and publicly performed in the U.K. In addition to these works, Smith wrote at least one other symphony, six concert overtures, an operetta, multiple large-scale cantatas, four piano quartets, three string quartets, a clarinet sonata, forty songs, six anthems, and three canticles. Two of her anthems, “Whoso hath this world’s goods” and “By the waters of Babylon,” were the first known works by a woman to be performed as part of a liturgy in the Church of England.
The Music
Heroes and hunters of Greek mythology, the love-struck princess of a 17th-century Mughal empire, and King Arthur’s Lady of the Lake were all subjects of Alice Mary Smith’s orchestral overtures. Like so many 19th-century composers, Smith frequently called upon myth and legend as narratives around which to weave her music. Her two extant symphonies, however, carry no such associations. Yet, while on the surface they appear to be “absolute music” (i.e. music without any external narrative), drama and theater break through that surface in ways sometimes elusive, sometimes clear, and often unexpected.
Perhaps the most affecting, if subtle, way that Smith achieves this drama is through instrumental color. At the end of the first movement’s slow introduction, the strings interrupt with three forceful tones, and the motoric drive of cellos and basses shake the ground over which the movement’s foreboding first theme is played. That theme begins on the lowest note of the viola before moving through the lower registers of the violins. Notes in these registers have a particularly dark quality, and the thicker strings on which they’re played amplify the friction between bow and string. The result is a gritty, tactile character that connects us to the musical drama in an almost visceral way. By contrast, the movement’s romantically lyrical second theme arises from, and always returns to, the warm middle register of the violins, providing a sonic sense of security. Adding to this color are melodies from the warmest members of the winds – bassoons, French horns, and clarinets. The brighter flutes and oboes are added only briefly before the cellos and basses recommence their motoric drive, ushering in the dark return of the movement’s principal theme.
This juxtaposition of two opposing themes is the driving force of instrumental drama in nearly all symphonies of the 18th through 20th centuries, and this principle of contrast similarly applies across the movements of Smith’s symphony. The lyrical second movement is pure elegance, again relying on the warmth of mid-register strings and lower woodwinds, providing calm after the relentless energy of the first movement. But animated motion returns in the third movement, a spritely scherzo in the vein of Mendelssohn or Beethoven. Here contrast is found between the high-pitched, pointillistic articulation of the fast sections and the plaintive songs of the slow ones.
The dramatic purpose of many a symphony’s fourth movement is to resolve the contrasts and conflicts that have come before and, in the case of a symphony that begins in the darkness of a minor key, to offer resolution through triumphant themes played upon brighter harmonies. The themes and instrumental choices in Smith’s finale certainly achieve such reconciliation. Full orchestra fanfares begin and end the movement, accompanied by lyrical themes reminiscent of the second movement and playful ones recalling the third. All told, the finale brings the resolution and victory we need in order for the story to feel complete.
However, amidst these patterns of contrast, unification, and triumph lies a dramatic curiosity. In every movement, the regular flow of music comes to a halt, interrupted by the plaintive tones of a solo oboe. The first movement’s introduction began with a melancholy theme marked “Grave” (meaning slow and solemn), played by the violas and cellos and ultimately passed to the oboe. But the introduction ended abruptly and without resolution, interrupted as it was by those three forceful tones described above. The second movement seems to run out of breath just before it ends, with three sighing figures from the oboe. The oboe interrupts twice in the third movement, each time at a suddenly slower tempo than the preceding music and each time leading to a solemn melody in the strings.
Yet the middle of the final movement is the most unexpected, and perhaps unnerving, sequence of interruptions. Amidst the fanfares and lyricism, a playful theme in the violins begins to fragment, harmonies darken, and carefree themes return only to be interrupted after a few notes. At the darkest moment, with strings thundering in their lowest registers and woodwinds nagging with dissonant harmonies, the music inexplicably brightens with a youthful, leaping melody in the oboe, and just eight measures later the fanfare is back. But it too is quickly fragmented and obscured until the music again runs out of breath and comes to silence. The oboe again sighs in three plaintive melodic fragments, and the grave theme that began the entire symphony returns, the oboe now carrying its somber tune. As in the first movement, the theme fails to resolve itself as the oboe wanders off course. The strings interrupt forcefully, as though to get the oboe’s attention, but the oboe repeats one last fragment of melody and submits to silence before the finale’s most playful music inexplicably resumes.
It’s hard to know what to make of this recurring character. Perhaps there’s some secret drama here, or perhaps a youthful Smith is simply weaving playful mysteries into her first symphony. Each of the oboe asides on its own makes for a contrasting moment of instrumental color, yet together they create a through-line that unites the symphony, a character wrapped up in its drama but left behind in its denouement. There are no heroes, hunters, or emperors here, but there is drama, imagination, and extraordinary storytelling.
