Sarah Mahler Hughes is Associate Professor of Music and
Chair of the Department at Ripon College in Ripon, Wisconsin, where she teaches
organ, piano, music history, and directs the Collegium Musicum. She is the
author of articles on French Baroque dance rhythms in Couperin's organ Masses
and the piano works of Veronika Dussek Cianchettini.
The music of Dame Ethel Smyth (1858-1944), like that of her
older contemporary Johannes Brahms (1836-1897), simultaneously embraces the
language of Beethoven and Schumann and the contrapuntal techniques of J.S.
Bach. Although works for organ
comprise but a small part of their respective oeuvres, both Smyth and Brahms
composed a set of chorale preludes for organ. Whereas Brahms' settings have
been widely studied and remained in print as a staple of organ repertoire,
however, Smyth's disappeared and were only recently reprinted.1 This discussion
will focus on the relationship between Brahms and Smyth and examine their
respective settings of the chorales "O Traurigkeit, O Herzeleid," and
"O Gott du frommer Gott," comparing and contrasting Brahms'
well-known settings with Smyth's much less familiar ones. The question of whether Smyth's works were merely overshadowed by Brahms', or were relegated to
obscurity because she was outside the musical establishment and,
coincidentally, a woman (her own view) inevitably arises in the context of such
a discussion.
Ethel Smyth, in the course of her long life, distinguished
herself as a composer, suffragette, and writer whose best-known musical works
are the monumental Mass in D (1891) for chorus, soloists, and orchestra, and
the opera, The Wreckers (1902-04). She counted the leading musical figures of
her day--Grieg, Tschaikovsky, Brahms, Clara Schumann, Bruno Walter, Sir Thomas
Beecham--among her friends, and she moved comfortably in aristocratic circles
despite her radical views on women's suffrage. Smyth's achievements were recognized in Britain by the universities of Durham, Oxford, and St. Andrew's, all of which conferred honorary D. Mus degrees upon her. In 1922, she was made a Dame of the British Empire, the equivalent of knighthood. In 1877, however, Ethel Smyth was a merely a young and very determined Englishwoman who had
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> embarked on a course of study at the
Leipzig Conservatory after overcoming the opposition of her equally determined
father. Upon her return to England in 1884, she became interested in the organ
and its repertoire. Her works up to that point had consisted of piano pieces
and chamber music. In her own
words, "I became bitten with organ-playing, which, as a sort of athletic
exercise, appealed to me far more than the violin, not to speak of the prospect
of tackling Bach on his own instrument."2 A friend took her to Bramshill
where Smyth heard Sir Frederick Ouseley, a pupil of Mendelssohn, improvise on
the organ. Smyth found his improvised fugues "Immensely musical and
effective . . . I was much impressed." 3 Smyth subsequently studied organ
with Sir Walter Parratt (1841-1924) of St. George's Chapel in Windsor. Smyth's
organ studies resulted in the composition of Short Chorale Preludes (1884,
published 1913). In this collection, Smyth set five chorales: "Du, O schönes Weltgebäude!", "O Gott du frommer Gott" (2 settings), "Schwing dich auf zu deinem Gott," "Erschienen ist der
herr-lich' Tag," and "O Traurigkeit, O Herzeleid."
Johannes Brahms was at the height of his career when Smyth
began her studies in Leipzig. She had heard Brahms' music for the first time at
a Saturday "pops" concert in London on which the
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> Liebeslieder Walzes were performed by a
solo quartet. She wrote afterwards with characteristic enthusiasm, "That
day I saw the whole Brahms; other bigger and . . . more important works of his
were to kindle fresh fires later one, but his genius possessed me then and
there in a flash."4 Smyth later met Brahms at the home of Heinrich and
Elizabeth (Lisl) von Herzogenberg, two of Leipzig's most prominent musical figures. Herzogenberg composed and, with Philip Spitta, founded the Bach Society (Bach Verein) in Leipzig. Lisl was a gifted amateur pianist and, next to Clara Schumann, Brahms's closest musical confidant. Lisl von Herzogenberg also became Smyth's confidante and dearest friend (As Time Went On, 300.) for a number of years. Brahms was a frequent guest at the Herzogenbergs, where Smyth heard him play the piano.
I like best to think of Brahms at the piano, playing his own
compositions or Bach's mighty organ fugues, sometimes accompanying himself with
a sort of muffled roar, as of Titans stirred to sympathy in the bowels of the
earth. The veins in his forehead stood out, his wonderful bright blue eyes
became veiled, and he seemed the incarnation of the restrained power in which
his own work is forged. For his playing was never noisy, and when lifting a
submerged theme out of a tangle of
music he used jokingly to ask us to admire the gentle sonority of his
"tenor thumb."5
Smyth, the neophyte composer, writes, "To me
personally, he was very kind and fatherly in his awkward way, chiefly, no
doubt, because of the place I held in his friend's [Lisl's] heart; but after a
very slight acquaintance I guessed he would never take a woman writer
seriously, and had no desire, though kindly urged by him to do so, to show him
my work." Smyth's instincts proved correct. One day Lisl von Herzogenberg
showed Brahms one of Smyth's unsigned fugues, and when Smyth came into the room
she heard Brahms analyzing it, "simply, gravely, and appreciatively."
In her delight and surprise she revealed her authorship, asking eagerly,
"Don't you think if I feel it that way I have a right to end on the
dominant?". The result was electrifying:
Suddenly the scene changed, back came the ironic smile, and
stroking his moustache he said in a voice charged with kindly contempt: "I
am quite sure, dear child, you may end when and where you please!" There
it was! he [sic] had suddenly remembered I was a girl, to take whom seriously
was beneath a man's dignity, and the quality of the work, which had I been a
obscure male he would have upheld against anyone, simply passed from his mind.6
After the above encounter, Smyth continued to
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> admire Brahms' music while understandably deploring his views on women. She accused him of subscribing to a
"poetical variant of the Kinder, Kirche, Küche axiom" then
prevalent in Germany, "namely that women are playthings."7 On the
occasion of a dinner party at the Herzogenbergs' she wrote a sarcastic little
poem whose last verse ran:
Der grosse Brahms hat's neulich ausgesprochen:
"Ein g'scheidtes Weib, das hat doch keinen Sinn!"
D'rum lasst uns einsig uns're Dummheit pflegen,
Denn nur auf diesem Punkt ist Werth zu legen
Als Weib und gute Brahmsianerinn!
(As the great Brahms recently proclaimed:
"A clever woman is a thing of naught!"
So let us diligently cultivate stupidity,
That being the only quality demanded
Of a female Brahms-admirer!)8
Brahms enjoyed this diatribe hugely and showed the poem to
everyone who approached him that evening to praise his work, insisting they
read it. For his part, he liked to
say that everyone resembles some orchestral instrument, and he called Smyth
"the oboe." Smyth's
portrait of Brahms in the first volume of her memoirs is candid and fair-minded
and totally devoid of hero worship.
She wrote:
From the very first I had worshipped Brahms's music, as I do
some of it now; hence was predisposed to admire the man.
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> But without exactly disliking him, his
personality neither impressed nor attracted me, and I never could understand
why the faithful had such an exalted opinion of his intellect. . . I saw
integrity, sincerity, kindness of heart, generosity to opponents, and a certain
nobility of soul that stamps all his music; but on the other hand I saw
coarseness, uncivlizedness, a defective perception of subtle shades in people
and things, lack of humor, and of course the inevitable and righteous
selfishness of people who have a message of their own to deliver and can't run
errands for others.9
Their relationship, although uneven, remained cordial even
after Smyth left Leipzig in 1884; she once called on Brahms in Vienna in later
years and he urged her to come back for a meal on her return trip.
Unfortunately he was away, and the two never met again.
O Traurigkeit, O Herzeleid
Similarities and contrasts between
Smyth's and Brahms' settings of the same chorales become readily apparent upon
examination. Both composers used the chorale, "O Traurigkeit, O
Herzeleid" (anonymous melody, 1628; text, Johann Rist, 1641) as the basis
of a prelude and fugue. Each composer placed the chorale melody in the soprano
in the preludes, which are brief (Smyth, 11 measures, Brahms, 16). Both Smyth
and Brahms rely on Baroque models for their settings and use the rich harmonic
language of late Romanticism to color their works. Beyond these similarities,
however, individual stylistic traits emerge for each composer.
Brahms had composed his Prelude by July 1858. He presented
an autograph manuscript of it to his piano student Friedchen Wagner before
leaving Hamburg that summer but made no arrangements to publish the piece.
Fifteen years elapsed before Brahms composed a companion Fugue, which he gave
to Philipp Spitta (without the Prelude). Spitta praised the Fugue, which he
classified as a Choralfantasie, finding it "worthy of its great Sebastian
Bach models in its art and pensiveness, in its warmth."
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> Spitta hastened to add that the piece
seemed no "mere copy" but was "a self-reliant imitation."10
By 1878 several of Brahms' friends, including the conductor Hermann Levi and
Elisabeth von Herzogenberg, had obtained copies of both the Prelude and Fugue,
and it was probably during this period that Brahms revised the Prelude. In
1881, Brahms submitted both pieces to E.W. Fritzsch for publication in the
journal Musikalisches Wochenblatt, modestly describing the pair as "really
not too bad."11
Throughout the Prelude, Brahms uses flowing triplet figures
in the left hand to accompany the unadorned cantus firmus, thus creating a
unified setting in the manner of the Orgelbüchlein chorales. These
"drooping melismata"
reinforce the sorrowful Affekt of the text ("O sorrow deep, who
would not weep with heartfelt pain and sighing?/God the Father's only Son within
the grave is lying").12 Brahms scholar Vernon Gotwals hears in these
opening measures an echo of the beginning of Bach's St. Matthew Passion, a
resonance reinforced by the shared tonality of E minor and the triplet
figuration.13 (Example 1) The following fugue in three voices over a pedal cantus firmus uses as its subject a
descending stepwise figure that is "only tenuously connected with the
chorale."14 This subject is answered by its inversion, revealing Brahms'
economy of means and contrapuntal mastery. A muscular, ascending countersubject
(alto, m. 2, beat 3; inverted in the soprano, m. 5, beat 3), balances the
sighing subject (Example 2). The Prelude's "intricate and peaceful
counterpoint" in three parts is confined to the manuals while the chorale
sounds in the pedal.16 An intricate sixteenth-note figuration that begins in m.
4 carries the music steadily forward to its serene conclusion over a tonic
pedal point.
In her four-voice prelude on this chorale, Smyth places a
highly ornamented cantus firmus against
supporting parts in the left hand and pedal. Interestingly, Smyth's
setting is a fourth lower than Brahms (E minor versus A minor).16 The
accompanying voices begin imitatively in the manner of Bach and continue in
like manner throughout the piece (Example 3). Rather than exploit a single
motive, however, Smyth underpins each phrase of the cantus firmus with a new
figure. The integration of this point of imitation technique into a smoothly
flowing whole reveals a degree of control over musical material as great as Brahms' economical
counterpoint.
The four-voice fugue which follows Smyth's prelude treats
each phrase of the chorale melody imitatively. A textural crescendo (reinforced
by the composer's directions of "piu f") begins with the appearance
of the third and central phrase in m. 23. Rhythmic activity intensifies at this
point with the introduction of triplets against the cantus firmus. The climax
of the fugue occurs in m.32ff with the fortissimo entrance of the chorale in
the pedal (Example 4). As an 18-measure decrescendo begins in m. 36, the fourth
phrase of the chorale appears but is interrupted by the reappearance of a
now-subdued phrase three. Fugal activity comes to a gradual halt over a
dominant pedal (m. 49-51) and a half cadence. The last section of the piece,
marked 'Adagio', recapitulates the entire chorale in a simple, homophonic
texture (Example 5). Smyth demonstrates skill in her handling of the musical
materials of this piece. The contrapuntal writing is deft, building to the
climax of the piece halfway through and subsiding thereafter, and the
pianissimo ending captures the intensely sorrowful nature of the text. Smyth's
fugue is impassioned and full of contrasts, whereas Brahms' reflects peaceful
resignation and a uniform gravitas. Smyth's setting bears the same dramatic
stamp as her subsequent Mass in D
and her works for the stage.
O Gott, du frommer Gott
Both Brahms and Smyth use a "salient thematic
motive"17 in pervasive imitation throughout their respective settings of "O Gott, du frommer Gott" ("O God, Thou Faithful God"). This
motive, derived from the first four notes of the chorale, appears in a slightly
different guise in each prelude (Example 6).
Brahms uses vorimitation to prepare the entrance of the
chorale in measure 7. The first phrase of the chorale (A of the AAB bar form)
appears in unornamented half notes in the soprano (m. 7-10). Vorimitation
intervenes again before the repeat of A in m. 17. This entrance is accompanied
by a Baroque-like harmonic sequence and a disjunct, energetic bass line
à la Handel. The vigorous figuration of Brahms' setting reflects the
text, which prays for good health, a pure soul, and a clear conscience.
Brahms maintains the pattern of presenting unornamented
chorale phrases separated by passages of vorimitation throughout the remainder
of the prelude. The beginning of the B section is heralded by "impressive,
trombone-like chords" with a chain of thirds in the bass.18 The texture,
heretofore strictly three-part, thickens momentarily in anticipation of the
majestic closing measures (58-62) of the piece. Thirds, both falling and
rising, figure prominently in the intricate texture that Brahms weaves
throughout. Brahms reveals his Titanesque nature in this stirring conclusion
when the pedal enters, for the first time, in thundering counterpoint with the
chorale in the soprano. The unusual and dramatic dynamic markings in this piece
(introduction and interludes are
forte, whereas until the last phrase, the chorale is piano) have been
remarked upon by Gotwals, who maintains that the pedal "supports the forte
[of the last phrase] that must follow the dying away after ein unverletzte Seel
(a Soul inviolate).19 Brahms' debt to Bach is apparent in the Baroque
techniques of vorimitation, harmonic sequences, rhythmic figuration, terraced
dynamics, and pervasive imitation based on a single motive derived from the
cantus firmus.
Smyth likewise reveals her assimilation of Bach's
Orgelbüchlein techniques in both settings of "O Gott du frommer Gott." The brevity of these pieces (hereafter referred to as G1 and G2), at 15 and 16 measures respectively, reflects the careful organization of material characteristic of counterpoint exercises. In G1, Smyth places the unadorned cantus firmus in the soprano, which is supported by a three-part (manuals and pedal) imitative texture (see Example 6). This setting, in plain common time, is straightforward and compact, without the cushions of vorimitation used by Brahms. G2 is cast as a canon between the soprano and bass. The alto and tenor voices engage in pervasive imitation in flowing eighth notes. These rhythms in the
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> 12/8 meter and quicker tempo marking
("Andante con moto" rather than G1's "Andante larghetto")
give a lilting, steady swing to the piece. The choice of C minor, a darker key
than the A minor of Brahms' setting, imbues Smyth's settings with a quality of
solemn introspection--perhaps earnest soul-searching for the path to a healthy
life and clear conscience. If G1 reflects, however, G2 strides purposefully
forward. Echoes of Smyth's
vigorous, intense personality which was always subject to "the pull of
life and the constant longing for calm, the fascination of difficulties and
barriers, the need of human contact and affection, the love of one's own
ways--in short, . . . Lebensteufel,"20 may be heard in her settings of
"O Gott du frommer Gott." Because they complement each other, a
strong argument may be made for performing them as a unit.
In formal terms, G2 displays one rather odd feature: the second A section of the chorale is not repeated. Colette Ripley, in her prefatory notes to this edition, states, "Because of the use of the canonic
compositional device, Smyth does not repeat the opening line of the melody as
is done in the chorale."21 Since both canonic voices finish at the same
half cadence in m. 5, however, this opening material can be repeated with no
discernable effect on the canonic structure.22 (Example 7)
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> Perhaps Smyth was experimenting--she
prided herself on originality in all things--or perhaps she simply neglected to
write out the repeat.
Without a doubt, in their chorale settings for organ both
Brahms and Smyth were influenced by Baroque models. The Orgelbüchlein of
J.S. Bach, in particular, is the musical and spiritual ancestor of these
late-nineteenth century pieces. Brahms' esteem for the music of Bach and
Handel, as well as that of earlier composers, is well-known, and his
scholarship advanced the fledgling field of musicology.23 Brahms frequently
performed Bach's organ preludes and fugues on the piano in recital and in his
youth studied counterpoint assiduously with his friend Joseph Joachim. Smyth's
participation in the Leipzig Bach Verein and enthusiasm for the works of Bach
have already been noted. She was profoundly moved by the St. Matthew Passion,
which she first heard at the Thomaskirche on Good Friday, 1878. The following
year Smyth participated in the same annual performance (playing in the second
violins!). She recalled later that
"the church seemed flooded with the living presence of Bach . . . I
suppose that every artist can say of one or two hours in the past that in these
he touched the extreme height and depth of his emotional life; such hours were
mine during a certain Passion performance . . . "24 The massive choruses,
religious intensity, and dramatic structure of this work are echoed in Smyth's
own Mass in D.
German-speaking composers from Mozart onward studied the
extant works of Bach as contrapuntal and affective masterpieces, and Brahms and
Smyth were nourished in that tradition. The admiration that both composers
sustained for the music of Bach indubitably led them to compose for the organ
even though neither became proficient organists or indeed, showed a lasting
interest in the instrument. Much has been written about Brahms' choice of the
organ as a medium for his early and last works with an intervening fallow
period.25 In a striking parallel, Smyth, after her early chorale settings,
turned to other things (principally opera, choral, and chamber music) but
returned to the organ in her last published work, the Prelude on a Traditional
Irish Air, written for Edith Somerville in 1938.
Why did Smyth's chorale preludes disappear from sight for so
long? Their length (useful for service music) and modest technical demands
should have assured them a place in late-Romantic organ repertoire alongside
the chorale preludes of Brahms and the op. 67 and 135a chorale preludes of Max
Reger, which they resemble stylistically. The answer may lie partly in
historical circumstances: Smyth
came of age during an era in which several well-established (male) composers
dominated the field. This phenomenon has occurred in every age, but one
critical difference distinguishes the nineteenth century from preceding eras.
The creation of a musical canon during the course of the century, incipient in
the efforts of the Bach Gesellschaft in the 1830s and nurtured by the
musicological studies of Spitta, Chrysander, and others, secured the posterity
of composers like Brahms and Wagner. Lesser composers, male as well as female,
were relegated to a secondary status. In addition, British-German antagonisms
during the Boer War and World War I played no small part in the disruption of
Smyth's career, forcing the cancellation of performances and severing contacts
in Germany.
Smyth felt herself an outsider on several counts:
Now it may be said that hundreds of artists are called on to
endure the like [neglect of their work], but in my case was a disheartening
element no man has to cope with . . . that given my sex, my foreign musical
education, and the conditions of English music life as I was coming to know
them, if I were ever to win through at all it would not be till I had one leg
in the grave.26
In 1933, assessing her career during the past fifty years,
she elaborated upon the "conditions of English music life":
The difficulty in my case has been that from the very first
. . . for some reason or other what I call 'the Machine' was against me.
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> If you ask me, "What is 'the
Machine'?" I can only answer,
"I don't know," but apparently it is a complex construction, made up,
say, of units from every section of our music life; heads of Musical Colleges,
leading publishers, dominant members of music committees throughout the
country, the Press, and so on.27
Despite these and other (admittedly self-imposed) obstacles,
Smyth did achieve a high degree of success and recognition as both a composer
and writer, reflected in the honors bestowed upon her during her lifetime and a
revival of some of her works in our time.28 Contemporary opinion of her
large-scale works varies,29 but Smyth's chorale preludes for organ, indebted to
Bach and late-nineteenth-century German Romanticism, bear an original stamp and
certainly compare favorably with those of Brahms. It is tempting to speculate
what he might have thought of her chorale preludes had he seen them in an
anonymous manuscript. (There is no indication that Smyth ever showed Brahms
these or any other of her works--the result would have been too predictably
patronizing.) The Titan's endorsement might not have made that much difference
to her, however. Throughout her career, Smyth refused to be deterred by any
real or perceived lack of approbation of her works. With characteristic
firmness, she penned encouraging words for future generations: "I do not
think the future looks too black for women composers who have something to say
and are not afraid of saying it after their own fashion
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> . . . All one has to do is go straight
on and pay no attention!"30
