ABSTRACT
Like Arthur Sullivan, Ethel Smyth had studied at the Leipzig Conservatory and would not be confined, as a number of Victorian women composers had been, to songs and domestic piano pieces. Arthur Sullivan had enjoyed such a ‘brilliant and dignified’ career for more than a quarter of a century. Despite his unfeigned geniality towards the 32-year-old Ethel Smyth, there was a curious ‘psychological’ age-gap. He was only 16 years her senior, yet in 1895 he would even describe himself as ‘old enough to be his father’. By the end of September he had composed most of the opera. He could now begin to score it more or less consecutively—pausing, however, to compose or re-compose where a section had been omitted or no longer satisfied him. The diary continued to chronicle the progress on the composition and orchestration of Ivanhoe.
