Ethel Smyth
Overture to The Wreckers

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Information

Year of arrangement:  2020

Composer:  Ethel Smyth (1858–1944)

Duration: 10mins

Instrumentation:  1[/pic] 1[/ca] 1 1 – 2 1 1 0 – 2perc, hp or pno, str (min. 1 1 1 1 1)

World Premiere: Rep Orchestra/George Morton, April 2022

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Sample Recording

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Sample Score/Part

Wreckers FULL SCORE Demo
File Size:	214 kb
File Type:	pdf

Download File

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​Hire/License Information

Published by Steel City Music Publishing
Hiring and licensing information available here

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Work Introduction

The Overture to Smyth’s opera The Wreckers is likely to be the one work of hers people have heard, if they have heard anything of her work. The Overture is an exuberant curtain-raiser, with lively outer sections representing the stormier aspects of the plot. A lyrical middle section first showcases the winds, then a sumptuous and sturdy theme gives the strings their head. The Wreckers, an opera telling the story of a Cornish community who’d entice ships to the rocks then pillage the wreckages, was initially a huge success (Mahler considered it in Vienna before he was driven from his job).

Written for individual woodwinds, a small brass section, timpanist, percussionist, harp/piano and a small string section, this new reduction of enables chamber ensembles to explore the overture from Dame Ethel Smyth's masterpiece The Wreckers. 

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