Personal Project 1
What: a performance edition with commentary of Ethel Smyth’s cello sonata in C minor, and ideally a recording of both Smyth cello sonatas
Why: part of why music by women isn’t performed as much as music by men, in addition to good not-so-old-fashioned sexism, is because it’s not as easily accessible
it’s expensive
there are not often very many editions
the music could be out of print
there are very few recordings available
How:
play the piece! look at the manuscript! play the A minor sonata! the obvious things
read about Smyth; read her writings
listen to as much of her music as I can
listen to other music (a little earlier and also contemporary) that may have influenced her
initial notes on the manuscript of the C minor sonata, taken Saturday 5th October 2019
okay, so I’ve spent ten minutes just solidly geeking out over this. the cello part has fingerings!! some in ink and others in pencil! whose are they!! there are also some cute discrepancies between the score and the cello part which often have clear, simple solutions. great.
***when editing, think about page turns!***
even in this, the manuscript, there are pencil markings (often in a different hand than the ink). these often serve to correct some of the discrepancies.
the cello part is so much easier to read, possibly because [of] the combination of new information + unfamiliar presentation (also the cello part may have been copied by a copyist whose handwriting may be neater than Ethel’s)
you will want to draw a distinction in your edition between inked slurs and pencilled ones
HER BASS CLEFS ARE BACKWARDS (sort of, they’re [drawing]) IT’S WEIRD (and now I want this tattooed on my right wrist to complement the one I already have on my left)
and some of the performance directions are in German — how many?
cello part:
mvt. 3
variation I is marked ‘breit’, variation IV is marked ‘gehend’
piano score:
‘gebunden’ throughout, variously (only two or three times actually)
mvt. 1
‘ruhig’ at letter G
mvt. 2
a whole sentence in the first ending of the last repeat before the trio
‘saüselnd’ at the beginning of the trio
mvt. 3
‘gehend’ at variation IV
‘breit’ after letter A (letter A does not appear in the cello part; instead this bar is marked ‘Tempo I’)
find out conclusively if this was the first piece she wrote (or the first one she finished)
***what do you think of the piece cellistically?***
I think there are similarities to the Chopin sonata, maybe not so oddly
also Pejacevic and Bosmans which were later
she uses the range of the instrument pretty thoroughly, but in the cello part at least, never ventures into the treble clef; the majority of the piece is spent in tenor clef
there is a measure crossed out in the piano score! mvt. 4 between letters E and F
she didn’t over-mark her music, that’s for sure
there’s a lot missing from the cello part — dynamics, some rehearsal letters, etc. — that reminds me a lot of the Bacewicz concerto I’m working on at the moment
— but surely when editing, if there’s a discrepancy as important as, say, flat vs. natural, you the editor wouldn’t just publish the work with the discrepancy still there? it’s your job to make an informed decision explain how you arrived at that conclusion, and suffer whatever consequences may occur
— or maybe the editor(s) of the Bacewicz were just lazy
Questions to think about
Why did she not publish this sonata?
Why, after writing this sonata in four momvements, did she write the A minor sonata in three movements? (Particularly as all standard Romantic and late-Romantic era cello sonatas are in four movements, other than the Brahms E minor — but actually, examine whether this held true for music that is not considered standard today)
What are the structural differences between the C minor and A minor sonatas?
Try to find out if she ever heard the C minor sonata performed.
Keep letting all of this marinate!