When do four soloists become a quartet? Group biographies are increasingly ubiquitous, but they are hard to pull off. Quartet is a passionate four-part fugue, intertwining the lives of composers Ethel Smyth, Rebecca Clarke, Dorothy Howell and Doreen Carwithen. Smyth detested being banded with other female composers, and this book never really clarifies why its subjects should be put together. They were not close friends or collaborators, and they shared the Earth for just two decades of Quartet’s 145-year span. The narrative is forever having to restart. Not until page 261, with the birth of Carwithen, are all the plates finally spinning.
True, all four forged careers against the odds, surmounting serious obstacles and sexist dismissal. Smyth (1858-1944) was the first woman to have a stage work produced by the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Clarke (1886-1979) escaped an abusive father to become one of the first female players in a professional orchestra, and composed numerous pieces for her own instrument, the viola. Howell (1898-1982) became famous for her symphonic poem Lamia, a regular at the Proms during the 1920s. Carwithen (1922-2003) was among the first women to compose for film, but her career was curtailed by her dedication to the music of William Alwyn, her teacher and eventual husband.
