It must have been Blanche Marchesi who gave me seats for the concert performance of Ethel Smyth’s opera 'The Wreckers', conducted by Nikisch at Queen’s Hall. Dame Ethel Smyth in her delectable memoirs which will, I think, withstand the ravages of time infinitely better than will her music speaks fervently of Blanche Marchesi’s singing in this opera, and of her selfless spirit of coöperation. The indomitable and very British fighting spirit of Dame Ethel, a woman composer who challenged all sorts of Victorian and Edwardian conventions in her private life as well as in her music, probably made a deeper impression on me than I realized then, or even years afterwards. << less