komm, süsser tod
The first single from our new album Traces is Ethel Smyth’s stunning Komm, süsser Tod.
This short but powerful piece is one of ‘Five Sacred Partsongs Based on Chorale Tunes’ written between 1882-1884 during Smyth’s time in Leipzig when she met both Johannes Brahms and Clara Schumann.
Alto Amy Blythe during our recording sessions at St Jude-on-the-Hill in Hampstead.
Photo © Nick Rutter
In contrast to a chordal texture of a chorale, Smyth uses the melody line to build a haunting four part polyphony with the choral tune in the sopranos and surprising twists and turns throughout. This approach creates a sense of parity to the music, giving expressive profile to each of the lower three voice parts in equal measure and allowing the text to be repeated throughout each phrase, in turn increasing the poignancy of this plea for a peaceful final rest.
Our recording is the first to be made of the piece and will be available on all streaming platforms from Friday 3 February.
MULTITUDE OF VOYCES
We’re hugely grateful to the work of Louise Stewart for bringing this music to life. We spoke to Louise about the piece:
In the planning of the first, groundbreaking volume of our anthology series it was important to ‘set out our stall’ as a charitable organisation with a clearly-defined purpose; to draw attention not just to high-quality music by women composers, of which many parish, cathedral, school and community choirs may not previously have been aware, but also advertently to raise up women both historical and living, who had and have, whether deliberately or co-incidentally, furthered the cause of gender equality for their peers and successors through their example and leadership. The inclusion of Ethel Smyth was a must.
Her long life (1858-1944) spanned an extraordinary period in British and world history, and, whilst her childhood was rooted in the upper-middle-class mid-Victorian conventions which expected women to contribute little to society beyond wifely obedience and motherhood, and which could be suspicious of overt displays of female talent, Ethel Smyth was able to use the significant advantage of the financial and social benefits afforded to her by not having to earn her own living, and her own considerable strength of character, to invest her time not only in determinedly developing her own creative gifts but also, through her involvement in the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), in helping to create the social and political freedoms on which the lives of (some) women of our generation are founded.
Maks Adach, a widely-experienced church-musician, had already blazed a trail for Ethel Smyth’s music and for the better-representation of women composers within the liturgical repertoire, by preparing an edition of her Five Sacred Partsongs* based on Chorale Tunes (composed c. 1877-1885). The set was performed by the Girl Choristers and Lay Vicars Choral of Lichfield Cathedral in 2018, under their director Martyn Rawles, in a service which marked the centenary of the Representation of the People Act 1918, a crucial Act which gave [some British] women over 30 the right to vote.
*The full set of Chorales is available from multitudeofvoyces.co.uk
Louise Stewart
Multitude of Voyces
(registered charity no 1201139)