Music of Sydney Smith

Early music for concertina and piano

Smith’s earliest pieces are piano accompaniments for three concertina pieces by Richard Blagrove. The Musical Times of June 1873 mentions a duet performance of a Duo Concertante on themes from Gounod’s Mirella, performed from the manuscript by Blagrove and Smith; we have no record of any publication, and any further information would be very gratefully received!

Solo and duet piano music of Sydney Smith

The vast majority of Smith’s output is for piano. We believe that the list which follows is complete, although we would be delighted to hear of more. We have made up some of the opus numbers for completeness, using the publication date of the British Library’s catalogue. Most of his music was issued by several publishers, and some pieces were issued under more than one opus number. For example, it seems likely that the pieces op.4 and op.23 below are the same.

A large proportion of his pieces for solo piano were also issued in piano duet versions. It is not known what involvement Smith had in the production of these pieces, although some publishers issued duet arrangements with arrangers credited. (Omitted are various simplified versions, many of which can be found on the Library of Congress website.)

We would be delighted to receive contributions of any missing items!

Doubtful works

Between 1904 and 1910, Franz Pazdirek published his Universal-Handbuch der Musikliteratur aller Zeiten und Völker, an attempt to list all music published. His entry on Sydney Smith is fairly complete, although a small number of pieces are omitted, and others (by, for example, Thomas Sydney Smith, or by Seymour Smith) incorrectly attributed. The pieces in the following list are not yet accounted for. They are all taken from Pazdirek, who also (usually) gives the publisher, but it is likely that many pieces in the list are also not by Sydney Smith, and we welcome any information.

This final piece is also listed in Schott’s catalogue of 1899 (p.60).

Songs

“Paul Beaumont”

Schott indicates that the piece is listed in Schott’s 1899 catalogue.

“Victor Delacour”

All these pieces are in Schott’s 1899 catalogue with the exceptions of Aide-de-camp and 6 nocturnes after Schubert.