Smyth-Dee - March Fantasy -Full Score

Violin 1
Violin 2
Violin 3 (Viola &)
Viola
Cello
Double Bass
Piano (optional)
Grade 2
Duration: ca. 2’15”
Ethel Smyth's March of the Women was composed in 1910 and premiered by the Suffrage Choir on January
21, 1911 at a ceremony celebrating the release of activists from prison. It was dedicated to the Women's
Social and Political Union (WSPU), who used it as their official anthem. Smyth based the melody on a
traditional tune she heard in Abruzzo, Italy, and the lyrics, which begin "Shout, shout, up with your song!
Cry with the wind, for the dawn is breaking. March, march, swing you along, wide blows our banner and
hope is waking," were by Cicely Hamilton. It was performed not only at rallies, but also by imprisoned
activists, including during Smyth's own imprisonment. Conductor Thomas Beecham reported that, when
visiting Smyth in prison, he found the suffragettes in the courtyard "marching round it and singing lustily
their war-chant while the composer, beaming approbation from an overlooking upper window, beat time
[...] with a toothbrush." This piece begins with a transcription of Smyth’s original march before proceeding
into a brief fantasy based on its themes. It ends with a return of the complete march.
Dame Ethel Mary Smyth was a British composer, conductor, author, and
suffragette who lived from 1858-1944. Despite Victorian-age societal
restrictions, Smyth insisted on an education and fought to have a career,
including performances and publication of her works. She studied at the
Leipzig Conservatory and came to know Brahms and Dvorak, who
encouraged her composition. She wrote in a variety of genres: lieder,
chamber music, opera, solo organ and piano, choral, and symphonic, and
her 1906 opera, The Wreckers, was the most-admired British opera of its
time. She was heavily involved with the English suffragette movement
from 1911-1913, even spending two months in prison after being arrested
with more than 100 feminists for breaking windows. During World War I
she worked in a French military hospital as an assistant radiologist, but she
became increasingly deaf and spent the remainder of her life focused on
writing, authoring eight volumes of memoirs.
Alexandra Dee is the Director of Orchestral Studies and Assistant Professor of
violin and viola at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Her previous positions
include Director of Orchestral Activities at the University of St. Francis in Joliet,
Illinois, cover conductor for the Joffrey Ballet, and a high school orchestra teacher
in Florida and Connecticut. She holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in orchestral
conducting from Northwestern University, where she studied with Victor
Yampolsky. She also attended Florida State University, where she earned a Master
of Music in orchestral conducting and a Bachelor of Music Education. At FSU, she
studied conducting with Dr. Alexander Jiménez. A consistent advocate for
contemporary music, she has performed and premiered numerous works by living
composers.