An Ethel Smyth moment

In preparation for the Bard Summerscape presentation of The Wreckers — very much worth seeing, despite the opera's unevenness — I revisited the work of Ethel Smyth on recording: her chamber works, piano music, the Mass in D, and, of course, The Wreckers, which Conifer Classics recorded in 1994. She was, beyond everything else, a composer of impeccable technical skill, nowhere more so than in her String Quartet in E Minor (1902-12). It has a potent, unsettled slow movement and a finale enlivened by quirky whole-tone harmonies. Like many of her pieces, it deserves to heard much more often. A recording of The Boatswain's Mate, which has been described as her most politically pointed opera, is in the offing.