Ethel Smyth - The Prison review | Erica Jeal's classical album of the week

The Guardian 80

Brailey/Burton/Experiential Chorus and Orchestra/Blachly
(Chandos)
A long overdue first recording for this work by the one-time imprisoned suffragette, detailing the spiritual awakening of a condemned man

Ethel Smyth was unusual among composers in being able to write a work called The Prison from a position of experience, but her weeks in Holloway as a time-serving suffragette were long past by 1930, when, aged 72 and increasingly deaf, she finished this “symphony for soprano, bass-baritone, chorus and orchestra”. The words are by HB Brewster, who had been Smyth’s close friend and, perhaps, her lover; they take the form of a dialogue between an innocent prisoner awaiting execution and his soul, sung by a soprano, who is able to guide him towards spiritual peace.

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