Mass in D

The Mass in D by Ethel Smyth is a setting of the mass ordinary for vocal soloists, chorus and orchestra. Background Smyth composed the Mass following a renewal of her High Anglican belief, stimulated by reading a copy of The Imitation of Christ, by Thomas à Kempis, while she was ill in Munich on Christmas Eve 1889. The book belonged to her Catholic friend Pauline Trevelyan, to whom Smyth dedicated the Mass. She composed much of it while a guest of Empress Eugénie at Cape Martin, near Monaco, in the summer of 1891. Eugénie was also a friend of Queen Victoria. In October 1891, Smyth was staying with Eugénie on the estate of Balmoral Castle when the Queen paid a visit. Smyth gave a rendition at the piano of two movements of the Mass, and the Queen invited her to the castle where she gave another, longer rendition. Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh subsequently asked the Royal Choral Society to schedule the premiere. This took place on 18 January 1893 in the Royal Albert Hall, conducted by Joseph Barnby. The soloists were Esther Palliser, Belle Cole, Ben Davies and Robert Watkin-Mills. The reception in the Albert Hall was enthusiastic, as were some reviews: J. A. Fuller Maitland praised the work's structure and rich orchestration. George Bernard Shaw wrote that the Mass was a sign of the rise of woman composers, though he called the work "the light literature of church music". Smyth was stung by what she saw as the patronising attitude of many reviewers towards a female composer.