The String Quartet

Presented by Leo Samama.

Today, we will focus on two British women who became well-known composers: Ethel Smyth and Susan Spain-Dunk. Smyth studied mostly in Germany and was one of the leading figures of the suffragette movement in 1910, along with Emmeline Pankhurst.

As a result of her last string quartet in E minor, she wrote to Pankhurst that writing an orchestral work was a lot easier than writing a quartet: “the most exquisite form of art.”

Susan Spain-Dunk’s Phantasy Quartet from 1915, may have been written as a result of a competition organised by the businessman Walter Cobbett, which in 1915 was dedicated to the string quartet. Together with Cobbett, she played quartet for years. The most striking feature of her Phantasy Quartet is the energy and the drive that it has interspersed with beautiful lilting melodies and moments of great calm.