Ethel Smyth was born in Marylebone, England, on April 22, 1858, and died in Woking, England, on May 9, 1944. The first performance of the Serenade in D took place at the Crystal Palace in London, England, on April 26, 1890, with August Manns conducting the Crystal Palace Orchestra. Approximate performance time is thirty-five minutes.
Dame Ethel Smyth was both an accomplished composer and outspoken member of the women’s suffrage movement. Smyth’s father, a military officer, strongly opposed his daughter pursuing a career in music. Nonetheless, Smyth began studies at the Leipzig Conservatory in 1887. Smyth quickly became dissatisfied with the experience, and after a year, began private studies with Heinrich von Herzogenberg. During these early years in Europe, Smyth made the acquaintance of such eminent musicians as Johannes Brahms, Clara Wieck Schumann, Joseph Joachim, Edvard Grieg, Anton Rubinstein, and Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky. After travels throughout Europe, Smyth returned to England in 1890. Over the next few decades, Smyth earned success and recognition both at home and abroad, especially in the realm of opera (although she composed effectively in a wide range of instrumental and vocal genres). On March 11, 1903, New York’s Metropolitan Opera performed the U.S. premiere of Smyth’s Der Wald. It was the Met’s first presentation of an opera by a woman composer.
At the start of the second decade of the 20th century, Smyth became strongly involved in the English suffragette movement. Smyth’s 1910 composition The March of the Women emerged as a suffragette anthem. In March of 1912, Smyth took part in a voting rights demonstration that led to her serving two months in Holloway Prison. When Sir Thomas Beecham, Smyth’s friend and advocate, visited her, he found the composer leading fellow suffragette inmates in a rousing performance of The March of the Women. In 1922, Ethel Smyth was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE). Smyth was the first female composer to be given this honor. She was also awarded honorary degrees from St. Andrews and Manchester Universities, and an honorary doctorate in music from Oxford University.
The Serenade in D, Ethel Smyth’s first orchestral work, was commissioned by the British conductor August Manns. The premiere took place on April 26, 1890, with Manns conducting his Crystal Palace Orchestra. The premiere was a success, both with the audience and critics.
Smyth’s teacher in Leipzig, Heinrich von Herzogenberg, was a close friend of Johannes Brahms. Smyth met Brahms on numerous occasions, and the German composer was impressed by the young Englishwoman, whom he affectionately referred to as “the little one.” The spirit of Brahms is evident in Smyth’s Serenade in D. In particular, Brahms’s own orchestral Serenades, No. 1 in D (1858) and No. 2 in A (1859), are recalled in Smyth’s warm instrumental sonorities, melodic invention, and ingenious thematic manipulation.
The Serenade is in four movements. The expansive first movement (Allegro non troppo) is cast in a lilting 6/8 meter. A trio of themes undergoes the traditional sonata form development and restatement. A serene coda provides the lovely conclusion. While Brahms is a preeminent influence in this Serenade, the legacy of Mendelssohn may be detected in the second movement. A sprightly contrapuntal episode launches the Scherzo (Allegro vivace). The spirit of the dance is omnipresent in a movement cast in A—B—A form. The third movement (Allegretto grazioso) juxtaposes its predecessor’s energy with more contemplative episodes. The Finale (Allegro con brio) provides the Serenade’s ebullient resolution.
Program notes by Ken Meltzer