JAVS Fall 2006

WQXR broadcast. O f rhe larrer and co nsi rent with rhc Iarke penchant for understa tement ;~ nd self-depreca ti on, Mrs. Fri skin sa id : I hada marvelous notice i11 the (New York} Times, I think f toldyou, really ernbanrzssingly good, too good, much too good, andall nonsense anyway, saying that if I hadn't been a won'lfln et cetera, et cetera. (2 I 1) Early in the book Nancy Reich listed for very va lid reasons why Rebecca C larke had not been given rhe recogni tion she deserved: (1) she composed a rela ti vely small (bur choice) body of wo rk, most of which wa nor published in her li fetime; (2) her las t work was composed in rhe 1950s, though she lived on to 1979; (3) perhaps, because of her dual citizenship, he fell between the cracks and wa claimed nei ther by Engli h nor American scholars of women's history; and (4) she was nor a self-promoter, and , like many women, spoke depreca tingly of her own ta lents. There i lirrle ro add to Reich's observations. I feel rhat I know Rebecca Clarke better having re;~d this book and have a broader appre ciation and insight, nor only into rhe Viola onata, bur her ca reer as a whole. One suspects that, with A Rebecca Clarke Reader, we have merely scratched the proverbial sur face of a rare ralenr and a com pelling personality who is not with out contradictions. Most violists are aware that Bela Bartok probably Conclusions:

would have fin ished his viola con cerro had his lifesp;~ n been even six weeks longer; conversely Clarke, blessed both with good health and length of years, three decades before her death reached a poinr beyond wh ich she chose no longer to com pose. Why? Many re.1sons arc sug gested, i.e. , changing interests and time constraints, bur no definitive cause seem to emerge. Blaming her lack of recognition on being a woman in a lare-Vicrori ~u1 man's world, while legitimate, is also con venient. he freely admitted that she was a poor businesswoman but did nor seem co realize the extent of her self-dcprccarion, which is revealed rime

brtween the competing individuals representing the composer's estate and academia respectively will be settled and additional compositions andpersonal data made available fin· publication. (I 04) iven the apparent entrenched positions of each parry, this regretfully may nor happen soon. I. Published and released by T he Rebecca C larke Society, August 15, 2005. 2. Conrenr reduced and itali cs quoted from "Si lenr Treatment" by Ri chard Byrne, printed in The Chronicle of Higher Education , July 16, 2004. - Dt: Dwight Pounds workedfor six years with Women's Studies at Western Kentucky University. The first ofthr·ee annual programsfea tured Kathryn Plummer (viola), and Amy Dorfman (piano), who performed the Clarke Viola Sonata and the Bloch Suite, replicating the 1919 Coolidge Competition pro gram. The second concert was pre sented by Christine RutLedge (viola} and Boyd jones (harpsichord) and the third by the Notre Dame Trio with Carolyn PLummer (violin), Christine Rutledge (lliola), and Karen Buranskas (cello). Thefourth concert, featuring women composers .forn the Baroque, Rococo, and Classical periods, was presented by Ars Femina. D1: Pounds' lecture, The Contribution ofWomen to the Art ofthe Viola, was predicated on the careers ofKathryn Plummn; Notes:

fiwn publication by her estate. Hopefully the legal diffirulties

Kim Kashkashian, Patricia McCarty, and Karen Daine.

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