Virginia Woolf, Ethel Smyth, and Music: Listening as a Productive Mode of Social Interaction

College Literature, Summer 2005 by Clements, Elicia

Smyth is also a frequent recipient ofWoolf's musical thoughts, notably when Woolf recounts a conversation between them in another letter. Woolf describes how her mind wanders during their discussion: "merely what one thinks when someone else is talking:-in fun; by way of playing a tune on the bass. I like trying to play tunes while people are talking-with a view to the whole symphony" (Nicolson 1979, 5: 354).Thoughts that remain unsaid in a conversation are associated with the aural dimension of music. Significantly, the receiver of such thinking is Smyth. What the musical analogy implies is simultaneous unity and dispersion-the capacity in music to sound notes in harmony with one another, yet to create singular melodic lines at the same time: counterpoint. Thus, not only does Smyth contribute to Woolf's ideas about community, belonging to the crowd as she does, but Woolf uses the musical metaphor of the symphony to communicate the concept of interconnection between people when describing their conversation. Miss La Trobe will be concerned with precisely these issues in her pageant and music will again be the inspiration that "makes us see the hidden. Join the broken" (Woolf 1998a, 108).

Jane Marcus has argued that the "Miss La Trobes who 'get up' pageants" (1977b, 2) have several counterparts. Many theatrical women influenced Woolf's depiction of Miss La Trobe, Marcus contends: "What these women have in common is a sort of swashbuckling English eccentric spinster's style" (2). Strangely, however, Marcus does not make the connection between Miss La Trobe and Smyth in this article, although she alludes to the link in a different publication.5 In still another paper,6 Marcus notes Smyth's nickname, "the Old Buccaneer," given to her by Lady Ottoline Morrell, but again does not link Miss La Trobe and Smyth. Yet, I maintain that the "swashbuckling English eccentric spinster's style" aptly evokes Smyth as well.7 Not only was she the "Old Buccaneer," but she also was known for her "swashbuckling" and "eccentric" behavior, especially as she relentlessly pursued conductors and theatrical directors in her efforts to get her operas performed. Although Marcus might not disagree with this claim, I suggest that the resonances of Smyth's personality are louder than Marcus proposes.

More connections can be made between Smyth and Miss La Trobe through Woolf's own comments. Between the Acts is set in the summer of 1939, on the day of an annual village pageant at Pointz Hall. The theatrical production written by Miss La Trobe, is a history of the English and of central importance to the novel. As early as 1930, Woolf remarks to Smyth that she is "building up one of the oddest, most air hung pageants of you and your life" (Nicolson 1978, 4:214). The friendship, Woolf continues,

is one of the strangest aesthetic experiences I have ever had; many people wd. [sic] say Lord how I hate your bookishness!-but you, who are so comprehensive ... will understand my use of aesthetic: then "air-hung": you see, I evolve you and your life and your friends and your whole tremendous intricacy backwards, from letters and diaries. (Nicolson 1978, 4:214)