Dame Ethel Smyth - The Prison (2020)

1. Close on Freedom. The Prisoner Communes with His Soul	7:10
2. Voices Sing of Immortality	4:29
3. The Prisoner Askes the Secret of Emancipation	2:27
4. His Soul Replies		3:26
5. He Asks In What Shape Emancipation Will Come		1:36
6. The Voices Reply		3:38
7. Orchestral Interlude. The First Glimmer of Dawn		3:12
8. The Prisoner Understands His Own Immortality		5:09
9. The Deliverance. The Prisoner Awakes		3:59
10. His Soul Tells Him the End of the Struggle Is At Hand	2:51
11. He Hears His Guests Moving to Depart	2:13
12. Pastoral. Sunset Calm	2:45
13. He Disbands His Ego		3:06
14. Voices Sing the Indestructibility of Human Passions		2:01
15. Death Calls Him. Gloring, He Obeys the Summons		5:13
16. His Farewell - His Triumph - His Peace		10:38

Dashon Burton (bass-baritone)
Sarah Brailey (soprano)
Experiential Chorus and Orchestra
James Blachly (conductor)

August 18th marks the 100th anniversary of the 19th Constitutional Amendment, granting women in the US the right to vote. A fitting time then for our release of the World Premier Recording of Ethel Smyths late masterpiece The Prison. Smyth left home at nineteen to study composition in Leipzig. In the company of Clara Schumann and her teacher Heinrich von Herzogenberg, she met and won the admiration of composers such as Tchaikovsky, Brahms, Dvorák, and Grieg. Smyth was the first woman to have an opera performed at the Met, in 1903. (The second was Kaija Saariaho, whose L'Amour de loin appeared there in 2016!) Smyth later became central to the Suffragette movement in England, writing the March of the Women. Her gender politics and sexuality were cause for attacks by critics, and she famously went to prison herself for throwing a stone through an MPs window. Composed in 1930 and premiered in 1931 in Edinburghs Usher Hall, The Prison is a Symphony in two parts, Close on Freedom and The Deliverance, set for soprano and bass-baritone soloists, chorus, and full orchestra. The text is taken from a philosophical work by Henry Bennet Brewster and concerns the writings of a prisoner in solitary confinement, his reflections on life and his preparations for death. The album is recorded in Surround Sound and available as a Hybrid SACD. ---prestomusic.com

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