Ethel Smyth

Ethel Smyth reached the Leipzig Conservatory at nineteen, having worn down a family with no intention of letting her go, and continued her studies in central Europe. She wrote six operas. The Wreckers, set among the ship-luring villagers of the Cornish coast, reached the stage in Leipzig before it reached London. The Mass in D, first heard at the Royal Albert Hall in 1893, is among her large-scale works, alongside the concerto for violin, horn and orchestra; she also wrote songs, chamber works and choral music. The March of the Women, first performed in 1911, was adopted as the anthem of the campaign for women's suffrage. She also wrote volumes of memoirs. She was made a Dame Commander in 1922 and died in 1944. The Leipzig studies began in 1877 and continued privately with Heinrich von Herzogenberg. Der Wald reached the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 1903, the first opera by a woman staged there, and growing deafness later drew her away from music towards the writing.