Music Feature

Peggy Reynolds looks back at the life and career of Ethel Smyth, composer, writer and friend to figures such as Tchaikovsky, Brahms and Virginia Woolf. With excerpts from her Mass in D, her songs, chamber music and the large-scale opera The Wreckers as well as a libretto by her lifelong friend Henry Brewster. Plus reflections from Thomas Beecham, Starr Brewster, Vita Sackville-West and others, interwoven with readings from Smyth's own memoirs and letters.