Add MS 46857-46863

ETHEL SMYTH COLLECTION Second Series (Vols. XVIII-XXIV)

Early musical works, mostly unpublished, and miscellaneous sketches of Ethel Mary Smyth, D.B.E. 1922 (b. 1858, d. 1944), supplementary to Add. MSS. 45934-45950; 1876-1930. Mostly autograph. Most of the early works cannot be exactly dated but were probably written during the composer's first years at Leipzig, 1877-1882. Some of the music paper used bears the stamp of a Florentine stationer and dates presumably from her visits there in 1882-1884. Ethel Smyth did not include her unpublished or most of the earliest published works in the catalogue of her compositions, now Add. MS. 49196. For a discussion of the early works see Kathleen Dale, 'Ethel Smyth's Prentice Work', Music and Letters, xxx, no. 4, Oct. 1949, pp. 329-336. See also the composer's Impressions that Remained, 2 vols., 1919, and C. St John, Ethel Smyth, 1959. The manuscripts of a few other early works are in Durham University Library (Dale, p. 330). Seven volumes. Paper. Various sizes. Presented in the name of the late Mrs Lincoln Cary Elwes, niece of the composer.