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Rebecca Helferich Clarke

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Performers and composers

              Rebecca Clarke
   Rebecca Clarke
   Rebecca Helferich Clarke in sepia.
      Origin    London, England
     Country    United Kingdom
   Years active 1916—1942
      Genres    Classical music

   Rebecca Helferich Clarke (Friskin) ( August 27, 1886 – October 13,
   1979) was an English classical composer and violist best known for her
   chamber music featuring the viola. She is considered one of the most
   important British composers in the interwar period between World War I
   and World War II; she has also been described as the most distinguished
   British female composer of her generation.

   Though she wrote little, due in part to her ideas about the role of a
   female composer (see below), her work was recognized for its
   compositional skill. Most of Clarke's works have yet to be published
   (or have only recently been published), and her work was largely
   forgotten after she stopped composing. Scholarship and interest in her
   work revived when she reached her ninetieth birthday in 1976.

Early life

   Clarke was born in Harrow, England, to Joseph Thacher Clarke and Agnes
   Paulina Marie Amalie Helferich, and studied at London's Royal College
   of Music. She grew up a bilingual speaker of English and German. She
   was known as Beccle by family and friends.

   The paths of her life and career were strongly affected by her gender.
   Beginning her studies at the Royal Academy of Music, she was pulled out
   by her father after being proposed to by teacher Percy Hilder Miles
   (who left her his Stradivarius violin in his will). She then attended
   the Royal College of Music, becoming one of Sir Charles Stanford's
   first female composition students (Clarke herself mistakenly claimed to
   be the first). At Stanford's urging she shifted her focus there from
   the violin to the viola, just as the latter was coming to be seen as a
   legitimate solo instrument. She studied with Lionel Tertis, who was
   considered by some the greatest violist of the day. Later, when
   selected to play in the Queen's Hall Orchestra, Clarke became one of
   the first female professional orchestral musicians.

   Having been kicked out of the house without funds by her abusive father
   for criticizing his extramarital affairs, Clarke supported herself
   through her viola playing after leaving the Royal College, and moved to
   the United States in 1916 to perform. Her compositional career peaked
   in a brief period, beginning with the viola sonata she entered in a
   1919 competition sponsored by patron of the arts Elizabeth Sprague
   Coolidge, Clarke's neighbour, tying for first prize in a field of 72
   entrants with a piece by Ernest Bloch. (Coolidge later declared Bloch
   the winner. Two judges of the contest remarked to Coolidge that though
   they had favored Clarke, it was good that she did not win, to avoid the
   appearance of Coolidge favoring her neighbour and friend and destroying
   the reputation of the then-new contest.) It was speculated by reporters
   that "Rebecca Clarke" was only a pseudonym for Bloch himself, or at
   least that it could not have been Clarke who wrote these pieces, as the
   idea that a woman could write such a work was nearly unheard of. The
   sonata was well received and had its first performance at the Berkshire
   music festival in 1919. In 1921 she again made an impressive showing,
   though still just failing to take the prize, with her piano trio. A
   1923 rhapsody for cello and piano followed, sponsored by Coolidge,
   making Clarke the only female recipient of her patronage. These three
   works represent the height of her compositional career. From then on
   her output was sporadic; she composed hardly at all throughout the
   1930s, for example, nor did she write during her employment as a nanny,
   though she continued to perform.
   Rebecca Clarke, Mrs. James Friskin, in 1976.
   Rebecca Clarke, Mrs. James Friskin, in 1976.

   The years from 1939 to 1942 were to prove her last significant creative
   period. By this point Clarke was living in the United States with her
   brothers, and was unhappy to see them turning out, in her eyes, as
   badly as their father. This period of unhappiness proved nevertheless
   to be a fertile one, but it did not last long.

Later life and marriage

   Clarke performed and wrote little after 1942. She suffered from
   dysthymia, a chronic form of depression; and the lack of
   encouragement—sometimes outright discouragement—she received for her
   work also stayed her pen. Perhaps the greatest barrier to composition
   was her own idea of her proper role. She married Juilliard piano
   instructor James Friskin in 1944. Clarke did not consider herself able
   to balance family life and composition: "I can't do it unless it's the
   first thing I think of every morning when I wake and the last thing I
   think of every night before I go to sleep." Clarke took the
   responsibilities of family life to be more important than composition;
   she stopped writing, though she continued working on arrangements until
   shortly before her death. She also stopped performing after her
   marriage. Her last composition, one of three to follow her wedding, was
   probably a song entitled "God Made a Tree", composed in 1954 (published
   2002).

   Clarke later sold the Stradivarius she had been bequeathed, and
   established the May Muklé prize at the Royal Academy, named after the
   cellist with whom she frequently toured. The prize is still awarded
   annually to an outstanding cellist.

   After her husband's death in 1967, Clarke began writing a memoir,
   entitled I Had a Father Too (or the Mustard Spoon); it was completed in
   1973 but never published. In it she describes her early life, marked by
   frequent beatings from her father and strained family relations, which
   went on to affect her perceptions of her proper place in life; her
   father's disapproval of her musical ambitions as well as his harsh
   treatment of her and her three siblings are speculated to have affected
   her compositional career. Clarke died in 1979 at her home in New York
   City, at the age of 93, and was cremated.

Music

   A large portion of Clarke's music features the viola, and takes
   advantage of the strengths of the instrument, as she was a professional
   performer for many years. Much of her output was written for herself
   and the all-female chamber ensembles she played in, including the Norah
   Clench Quartet, the English Ensemble, and the d'Aranyi Sisters. She
   also toured worldwide, particularly with cellist May Muklé. Her works
   were strongly influenced by several trends in music of the 20th
   century; Clarke also knew many leading composers of the day, including
   Bloch and Ravel, to whom her work has been compared.

   The impressionism of Debussy is often mentioned in connection with her
   work, with lush textures and modernistic harmonies; the Viola Sonata
   (published in the same year as the prizewinning Bloch and also of the
   Hindemith Viola Sonata) is a particular example, with its pentatonic
   opening theme, thick harmonies, emotionally intense nature, and dense,
   rhythmically complex texture. The Sonata remains a part of standard
   repertoire for the viola to this day. Morpheus, composed a year
   earlier, was her first expansive work, after over a decade of songs and
   miniatures. The Rhapsody sponsored by Coolidge, is Clarke's most
   ambitious work, roughly 23 minutes long, with complex musical ideas and
   ambiguous tonalities contributing to the varying moods of the piece. In
   contrast, "Midsummer Moon", written the very next year, is a light
   miniature, with a flutter-like solo violin line.

   In addition to her chamber music for strings, Clarke wrote many songs.
   Nearly all of Clarke's early pieces are for solo voice and piano. Her
   setting of "The Tiger", which she worked on for five years to the
   exclusion of other works during her tumultuous relationship with
   baritone John Goss (who was married at the time; Clarke was not), is
   dark and brooding, almost expressionist; most, however, are lighter in
   nature. Her earliest works were parlor songs; she went on to build up a
   body of work primarily drawing from classic texts by Yeats, Masefield,
   and traditional Chinese writings.

   During 1939 to 1942, the last prolific period near the end of her
   compositional career, her style grew less dense and strongly developed,
   and more clear and contrapuntal, with emphasis on motivic elements and
   tonal structures, the influences of neoclassicism appearing in her
   works. Dumka (1941), a recently published work for violin, viola, and
   piano, reflects the Eastern European folk styles of Bartók and Martinů.
   The " Passacaglia on an Old English Tune", also from 1941 and premiered
   by Clarke herself, is based on a theme attributed to Thomas Tallis
   which appears throughout the work. The piece is modal in flavor, mainly
   the Dorian mode but venturing into the seldom-heard Phrygian mode.
   Dedicated to "BB", ostensibly Clarke's niece Magdalen, scholars
   speculate that the dedication is more likely referring to Benjamin
   Britten, who organized a concert commemorating the death of Clarke's
   friend and major influence Frank Bridge. The Prelude, Allegro, and
   Pastorale, also composed in 1941, is another neoclassically influenced
   piece, written for clarinet and viola (originally for her brother and
   sister-in-law). Ralph Vaughan Williams befriended Clarke in the 1940s,
   and conducted concerts featuring her music on several occasions.
   A 1917 program showcasing Clarke's work; her duo "Morpheus" is here
   credited to the pseudonym "Anthony Trent".
   Enlarge
   A 1917 program showcasing Clarke's work; her duo "Morpheus" is here
   credited to the pseudonym "Anthony Trent".

   Clarke's views on the social role of women—herself in particular—were
   incompatible with any ambition to compose music in the larger forms.
   Her oeuvre consists largely of short chamber pieces and songs; notably
   absent from her work are large-scale pieces such as symphonies, which
   despite her talent she never attempted to write. Some of her choral
   music, however, is large in conception—particularly the setting of
   Psalm 91, and the Chorus from Shelley's "Hellas" for five part women's
   chorus; both works were first recorded in 2003 shortly after their
   posthumous publication.

   Her work was all but forgotten for a long period of time; it was
   revived in 1976 during a radio station celebration of her ninetieth
   birthday, and with recent scholarship, particularly works by the
   Rebecca Clarke Society, she has since begun coming back into public
   awareness. Over half of Clarke's compositions remain unpublished, in
   the personal possession of her heirs, along with most of her writings;
   however in the early 2000s revival of interest in her music continued,
   with more of her works being printed and recorded, and continuing
   efforts being made to make her works available. Examples include two
   string quartets as well as one composition published in 2002, a short,
   lyrical piece for viola and piano entitled Morpheus, the latter
   composed under the pseudonym of "Anthony Trent" to avoid having her
   name on a recital program so often. Reviews of the concert praised the
   "Trent", while all but ignoring the works credited to Clarke.

Rebecca Clarke Society

   The Rebecca Clarke Society was established in September 2000 to promote
   performance, scholarship, and awareness of the works of Rebecca Clarke,
   following an event at Brandeis University celebrating her work. Founded
   by musicologists Liane Curtis and Jessie Ann Owens and based out of the
   Women's Studies Research Centre at Brandeis, the Society has pushed
   forward recording and scholarship of her work, including several world
   premiere performances and recordings of unpublished material as well as
   numerous journal publications. Dr. Laura Macy, another early board
   member, is now the editor of the Grove Dictionary of Music and
   Musicians, a highly regarded reference work on all aspects of music,
   and was instrumental on increasing the publication's coverage of female
   composers, including Clarke, who was cut from the previous 1980
   edition.

   Of particular interest is the publication of previously unpublished
   compositions from Clarke's estate, include some that were unknown even
   by her family until after her death. "Binnorie", a twelve-minute song
   based on Celtic folklore, was only discovered in 1997, and not
   premiered until 2001. Over 25 previously unpublished works have been
   made available since the establishment of the Society. Several of
   Clarke's chamber works, including the expansive Rhapsody for cello and
   piano, and Cortège, her only piano work, were first recorded in 2000 on
   the Dutton label, making use of material made available from the Clarke
   estate. They organized and sponsored the world premieres of the 1907
   and 1909 violin sonatas in 2002. Several concerts of her music have
   been put on through their efforts, particularly in the Boston area.

   In addition to promoting Clarke, the Society also encourages female
   composers by sponsoring the Rebecca Clarke prize for new music by
   women. The contest was begun in 2003 and is planned to be held every
   two years.

Selected works

     * "Shiv and the Grasshopper" (1904), vocal, text Rudyard Kipling
     * "Shy One" (1912), vocal, text Yeats
     * Morpheus (1917-18), viola and piano
     * Sonata (1919), viola (or cello) and piano
     * Piano Trio (1921), violin, viola, and piano
     * He that dwelleth in the secret place ( Psalm xci) (1921), SATB
       choir with S,A,T,B solo
     * "The Seal Man" (1922), vocal, text John Masefield
     * Rhapsody (1923), cello and piano
     * "The Aspidistra" (1929), vocal, text Claude Flight
     * "The Tiger" (1929–33), vocal, text William Blake
     * Passacaglia on an Old English Tune (?1940–41), viola (or cello) and
       piano
     * Prelude, Allegro and Pastorale (1941), viola and clarinet
     * "God made a tree" (1954), vocal, text Katherine Kendall

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