JAVS Spring 2024

Featured Article

Pt. I: Rebecca Clarke Abroad— The Launching of a Viola Star by Caroline Castleton

The revival of Rebecca Clarke’s compositions in the 1970s sparked new interest in her from scholars and performers alike. Her success as a composer during the period between the two World Wars was anomalous in a world where women received little encouragement towards entering the field. Authors of academic literature, CD liner notes, and program notes, have repeatedly told the story of how Clarke’s Viola Sonata and Piano Trio received first runner-up at the Berkshire Festival of Chamber Music’s composition competitions 1919 and 1921, respectively. 1 Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, sponsor of the Berkshire Festival of Chamber Music, commissioned another chamber work from Rebecca Clarke in 1923: the Rhapsody for Cello and Piano. All three of these works are frequently performed today. Coolidge’s patronage placed Clarke squarely among the ranks of such composers as Igor Stravinsky, Ernest Bloch, Samuel Barber, and Béla Bartók, who also benefited from Coolidge’s commissioning of new works. 2 Clarke composed over one hundred pieces, comprising works for instrumental chamber ensembles, voice and piano, and choral ensembles. Most of the published literature on Rebecca Clarke focuses on her work as a composer; however, her main career focus and source of income was not in composition, but instead as a performing violist. The two branches of her career were inextricably connected and had historical precedent. Some of the most revered composers of Western European art music played the viola, including J. S. Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, and Dvořák. These luminaries appeared to find that playing a middle voice was useful to their craft. Clarke’s composition teacher at the Royal College of Music, Charles Villiers Stanford (1852–1924), shared this philosophy and prompted her switch from violin to viola, as she describes in her memoir:

‘You must come into the orchestra,’ Sir Charles had said soon after I entered College. He was the conductor. ‘Change over to the viola,’ he continued, ‘because then you are right in the middle of the sound, and can tell how it’s all done.’ And from that moment the viola became my instrument. I had felt an affinity for it ever since I was a child and first heard the two Brahms songs with viola obligato; so the switch from violin felt very natural. I have always been glad I made it. 3

While Stanford’s suggestion was clearly a practical one from a compositional standpoint, Clarke’s remarks, as well as her dedication to the viola throughout her career, demonstrate an affinity for the instrument that reached far beyond a utilitarian support for her compositional aspirations. By switching to the viola, Clarke entered largely uncharted territory in comparison to other string instruments, in that technical approaches to playing the violin and cello were long established with method books, schools of technique, and increasingly demanding new repertoire. Until the early twentieth century, the viola received little attention from major composers, pedagogues, and performers due to its perceived limitations in projection as well as its reputation as an instrument for second-rate violinists—violists Lionel Tertis (1876–1975), Paul Hindemith (1895–1963), and William Primrose (1904–1982) tend to receive the most credit for the emergence of the viola as a solo instrument.

Journal of the American Viola Society / Vol. 40, No. 1, Spring 2024

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