Rebecca Clarke was a British-American classical composer and violinist. Internationally renowned as a viola virtuoso, she also became one of the first female professional orchestral players. Her father was interested in music, and Clarke started on violin after sitting in on lessons that were being given to her brother, Hans who was 15 months her junior. She began her studies at the Royal Academy of Music in 1903, but was withdrawn by her father in 1905 after her harmony teacher proposed to her. He later left her his Stradivarius violin in his will. She made the first of many visits to the United States shortly after leaving the Royal Academy. She then attended the Royal College of Music from 1907 to 1910, becoming one of Sir Charles Stanford’s first female composition students. At Stanford’s urging she shifted her focus from the violin to the viola, just as the latter was coming to be seen as a legitimate solo instrument.
Clarke became one of the first female professional orchestral musicians when she was selected by Sir Henry Wood to play in the Queen’s Hall Orchestra in 1912. In 1916 she moved to the United States to continue her performing career. A short, lyrical piece for viola and piano entitled Morpheus, composed under the pseudonym of “Anthony Trent”, was premiered at her 1918 joint recital with cellist May Mukle in New York City. Reviewers praised the “Trent”, largely ignoring the works credited to Clarke premiered in the same recital.
Her compositional career peaked in a brief period, beginning with the viola sonata she entered in a 1919 competition sponsored by Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, Clarke’s neighbour and a patron of the arts. In a field of 72 entrants, Clarke’s sonata tied for first place with a composition by Ernest Bloch. Coolidge later declared Bloch the winner. Reporters speculated 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 beautiful work was socially inconceivable.
The sonata was well received and had its first performance at the Berkshire music festival in 1919. In 1921 Clarke again made an impressive showing in Coolidge’s composition competition with her piano trio, though again failed to take the prize. A 1923 rhapsody for cello and piano followed, sponsored by Coolidge, making Clarke the only female recipient of Coolidge’s patronage. These three works represent the height of Clarke’s compositional career.
Clarke, in 1924, embarked upon a career as a solo and ensemble performer in London, after first completing a world tour in 1922–23. In 1927 she helped form the English Ensemble, a piano quartet that included herself, Marjorie Hayward, Kathleen Long and May Mukle. She also performed on several recordings in the 1920s and 1930s, and participated in BBC music broadcasts. Her compositional output greatly decreased during this period. However, she continued to perform, participating in the Paris Colonial Exhibition in 1931 as part of the English Ensemble. Between 1927 and 1933 she was romantically involved with the British baritone John Goss, who was eight years her junior and married at the time. He had premiered several of her mature songs, two of which were dedicated to him, “June Twilight” and “The Seal Man”. Her “Tiger, Tiger”, finished at the time the relationship was ending, proved to be her last composition for solo voice until the early 1940s.
At the outbreak of World War II, Clarke was in the US visiting her two brothers, and was unable to obtain a visa to return to Britain. She lived for a while with her brothers’ families and then in 1942 took a position as a governess for a family in Connecticut. She composed 10 works between 1939 and 1942, including her Passacaglia on an Old English Tune. She had first met James Friskin, a composer, concert pianist, and founding member of the Julliard School faculty, and later to become her husband, when they were both students at the Royal College of Music. They renewed their friendship after a chance meeting on a Manhattan street in 1944 and married in September of that year when both were in their late 50s. According to musicologist Liane Curtis, Friskin was “a man who gave [Clarke] a sense of deep satisfaction and equilibrium.
Clarke has been described by Stephen Banfield as the most distinguished British female composer of the inter-war generation. However, her later output was sporadic. She suffered from dysthymia, a chronic form of depression; the lack of encouragement—sometimes outright discouragement—she received for her work also made her reluctant to compose. Clarke did not consider herself able to balance her personal life and the demands of 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.” After her marriage, she stopped composing, despite the encouragement of her husband, although she continued working on arrangements until shortly before her death. She also stopped performing.
Clarke composed no large scale works such as symphonies. Her total output of compositions comprises 52 songs, 11 choral works, 21 chamber pieces, the Piano Trio, and the Viola Sonata. Her work was all but forgotten for a long period of time, but interest in it was revived in 1976 following a radio broadcast in celebration of her ninetieth birthday. Over half of Clarke’s compositions remain unpublished and in the personal possession of her heirs, along with most of her writings.[11] However, in the early 2000s more of her works were printed and recorded. Examples of recent publications include two string quartets and Morpheus, published in 2002.
