Winter 2023

Notable Women
AComposers Florence Price and Ethel Smyth
A supermoon illuminated the sky over the Arno as
the music of women composers filled Florence’s
Lyceum Club for the inauguration of ‘Palace
Women – Oltrarno and Beyond’. Serendipity?
Perhaps, but there is no doubt that the presence
of this symbol of female energy added to the
sense that ‘Scoring Suffrage’ (as the recital was
called) was an exceptional event. Below, we take a
closer look at two of the composers whose work
featured in the recital.
Near contemporaries from opposite sides
of the Atlantic, Florence Price (1887-1953) and
Ethel Smyth (1858-1944), fought against prejudice
to have their compositions recognised and
performed. The body of work they left behind is
testament to their talent and perseverance.
Portrait of Florence Price
Looking at the Camera,
undated, Papers Addendum
(MC 988a). Special Collections,
University of Arkansas
Libraries, Fayetteville
FLORENCE PRICE
Florence Beatrice Smith was born into a
prominent family in the Black community of
Little Rock, Arkansas. Her mother was a talented
singer and pianist who quickly recognised her
daughter’s musical gifts and sent Florence to
Boston to study at the New England Conservatory.
In addition to excelling at her piano and organ
studies, she took private lessons in composition
with the school’s director. That Florence
encountered discrimination along the way is
evidenced by the fact that, in her final year at the
Conservatory, she falsely registered as a Mexican
resident in an effort to avoid harassment from
segregationist Southern white students, not an
unusual occurrence for students of colour. In
fact, Florence’s background included a mixture
of French, Indian, Spanish and African American
ancestry, and she would draw from this “racial
melting pot” in composing her music.
Florence returned to Little Rock after
graduation and married Thomas Price, an upand-coming
lawyer. When racial tensions in the
city later erupted in violence, the couple, with
their two young daughters, joined the Great
Migration of Blacks fleeing northward, eventually
settling in Chicago. Florence continued to study
composition, publishing four pieces for piano
in 1928. When her marriage ended in divorce in
1931, she supported her family by working as an
organist for silent film screenings and composing
jingles for radio advertisements.
Her ‘break’ came when she won the 1932
Rodman Wanamaker Award, a competition for
Black composers, with her entry ‘Symphony
No 1 in E minor,’ which was performed by the
Chicago Symphony Orchestra as part of the
World’s Fair in 1933. The Chicago Daily News’
music critic described it as “a faultless work
… that speaks its own message with restraint
and yet with passion … worthy of a place in the
regular symphonic repertoire.”
20 Restoration Conversations • Winter 2023