A-R Edition's series Recent Researches in the Music of the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries has made available to musicians and scholars critical performing editions of a remarkable array of music. These include a number of orchestral and choral works by the mid-nineteenth-century English composer Alice Mary Smith (1839–1884), edited by Ian Graham Jones. Graham-Jones's new edition of Smith's Andante for solo clarinet and orchestra and two intermezzi from her ‘grand choral cantata’ setting of Longfellow's The Masque of Pandora provides tantalising insights into the work of this intriguing, short-lived, but prolific composer, and complements his earlier work on Smith's symphonies, overtures, and Ode to the Passions, which have already appeared in the series.Footnote ¹

Smith's name may not be well-known today, but Graham-Jones's careful editorial work and the attractive layout of the score make available to musicians fascinating additions to the repertory, especially at a time when ensembles are actively seeking to include more works by women in concert programmes. Smith's Andante for clarinet and orchestra – adapted from the slow movement of her Sonata in A for clarinet and piano, and, possibly, the central movement of a full concerto – will be of particular interest to clarinettists seeking a lyrical solo piece of early Romantic character. Throughout this Andante Smith's textures are carefully balanced: the strings, woodwind, and horns create a luminous ambience that supports the lyrical clarinet line.

As Graham-Jones explains, Alice Mary Smith was unusual among mid-nineteenth-century women composers: not only did she write for orchestral and choral forces – alongside a number of chamber works and songs – but these works received regular performances at prominent public concerts in London and further afield. Smith is also credited with being the first British woman to compose a symphony. In fact, she composed two symphonies in A and C minor, which have been stylishly recorded by the London Mozart Players.Footnote ²

Smith's early aptitude for music prompted her parents to make the enlightened decision for her to take lessons in composition with William Sterndale Bennett and George Macfarren. Smith's first publication, in 1857, was the song ‘Sing On, Sweet Thrush’, but as Graham-Jones writes in his introduction to the present publication, it was Macfarren who encouraged Smith to look beyond the domestic genres of piano music and song considered appropriate for women, and instead write large-scale orchestral music (vii). Smith's election as a Female Associate of the Musical Society of London would then facilitate performances of her orchestral works (vii).

In the edition under review, the inclusion of two intermezzi from the cantata The Masque of Pandora increases the scope of Smith's orchestral music available for performance and study. The addition to library shelves of more orchestral music by nineteenth-century women such as Smith is of special value to those teaching courses on nineteenth-century British music, on women who composed professionally in the nineteenth century, or indeed both.

Many nineteenth-century reviews of performances of Smith's music – some of which are included in the introduction to the current edition – emphasize that her works appeared on concert programmes for their own merit, worthy of the positive reception they received. Nevertheless, the tone of some critics exuded condescension by insinuating that the conductors of the Crystal Palace and New Philharmonic concerts programmed Smith as a novelty or act of charity. When the Masque of Pandora intermezzi were performed at one of Wilhelm Ganz's orchestral concerts in June 1881 – sandwiched between Karl Tausig's arrangement of Weber's L'Invitation à la Valse and the overture to Der Freischütz – the Musical Standard's critic wrote that:

Despite the critic's reluctance to ascribe Smith's colourful and inventive orchestration to the composer's own imagination and craft, this new critical edition of the intermezzi permits study and reappraisal of Smith's approach to structure and instrumentation, revealing a deft and intuitive approach to orchestral colour. The first intermezzo (‘After the Storm’) evokes the ‘ruin and desolation’ that followed Pandora's unleashing of all the odium contained in the casket. The piece demonstrates variety in its design, the instrumental colour enhanced by the presence of four French horns. ‘In the Garden’ – the second intermezzo – refers to an earlier moment in Longfellow's poem, when Pandora and Epimetheus take their ease amid trees and birds. Smith's synthesis of cor anglais and clarinets with a melody for the viola and divided cello sections must create a lustrous effect.

This edition is based primarily on scores held in the library of the Royal Academy of Music, taking into consideration a variety of manuscript and printed sources. Graham-Jones's edition of the Andante for clarinet and orchestra takes as its principal source a complete manuscript full score of the Andante (RAM MS 1675), while also using information from a manuscript score of Smith's Sonata for Clarinet and Piano (RAM MS 1665).Footnote ⁴ Graham-Jones notes that while the Andante is in essence an orchestrated transcription of the central movement of the Sonata, there are some significant differences, and he enumerates Smith's alterations, as well as variants in phrasing and articulation marks between the sonata movement and the Andante (viin4).

In the case of the intermezzi, the main source for this edition is a complete manuscript full score (RAM MS 1074), but Graham-Jones has sought further detail from a manuscript vocal score (RAM MS 1681), which includes the subtitles ‘After the Storm’ and ‘In the Garden’ for each intermezzo that appears in the new edition. Furthermore, Graham-Jones also references the set of complete performance parts for the intermezzi (RAM MS 1687 and RAM MS 1688) that were used for performances of the pieces in 1879 and 1881. As noted in the critical report, these performance parts also provide a picture of the size of the orchestra for these performances.

Graham-Jones's commentary on his editorial methods makes clear how he has regularized score layout, bar numbering, beaming, slurring, and dynamic and tempo instructions; his editorial interpolations are also clearly differentiated. Examples of Graham-Jones's detailed approach to consistency and clarity include, for example, in bar 26 where the editor has added diminuendo markings to the second violin, viola, cello, and double bass parts consistent with the first violin part, but using a dotted, rather than solid hairpin. Similarly, in bars 48–49, the editor ensures consistency across the woodwind and string parts when the composer's dynamic markings are only included in the clarinet and middle string parts. In this, and other instances, nobody reading the score for the first time would be in any doubt as to the provenance of these dynamic and articulation markings.

The appearance of the score is pleasing, and from the perspective of a string-player the edition would serve as an excellent basis for performance parts, highlighting the potential for a recording of the Masque of Pandora intermezzi. Overall, this new publication of Alice Mary Smith's Short Orchestral Works provides a valuable contribution to the growth of critical editions of music by nineteenth-century women.