SMITH, A.M.: Symphonies / Andante for Clarinet and Orchestra

The fact that these works have, until now, remained unrecorded perhaps bears witness to the fact that the discrimination confronted by Alice Mary Smith over a hundred years ago has still not been entirely eradicated. Smith wrote by far the greatest number of orchestral works of any ninteenth-century British woman composer and the success of her orchestral and choral works gave rise to a heated discussion as to whether a woman could ever compose a work of greatness. Her finely crafted and inventive music is the story of a wife and mother battling against prejudice and, in the eyes of her contemporaries at least, succeeding.