Rebecca Clarke

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Rebecca Clarke

Rebecca Clarke (born August 27, 1886 in Harrow , England , United Kingdom; † October 13, 1979 in New York City , New York , United States ) was a British composer and violist of American-German origin. Today she is considered one of the most important composers in her country in the interwar period .

Parental home and childhood

Rebecca Clarke was the first of four siblings. Her father, Joseph Thacher Clarke (1856–1920), was an American and a representative for Eastman Kodak in Europe. The mother, Agnes Paulina Marie Amalie Helferich, came from Munich , where her father Johann von Helferich was professor of economic policy. The historian Leopold von Ranke was a great-uncle of Rebecca Clarke, who grew up bilingually. Music played an important role in the family; the father played the cello himself and sent all four children to music lessons. However, their childhood was overshadowed by the authoritarian, violent character of their father. Clarke wrote in her previously unpublished memoirs:

We were all of us whipped, sometimes really painfully […]. For years my nails were examined every Sunday morning by Papa; I had started the habit of biting them. And if they were not satisfactory (and they never were) I was doomed to another session with the […] steel slapper, while Mama waited helplessly outside the door and cried. (German: We were all beaten, sometimes in extremely painful ways [...]. For years, my fingernails were examined by papa every Sunday morning; I had adopted the habit of chewing on them. When they did not look satisfactory (and that they never did), I was sentenced to another session with the […] steel ruler while mom waited helplessly in front of the door and cried).

Her brother was the chemist Hans Thacher Clarke (1887–1972), who had emigrated to the USA , was a professor at Columbia University and played the clarinet excellently.

Music studies

Rebecca Clarke with Viola, 1919

In 1903 Rebecca Clarke began studying at the Royal Academy of Music in London. Her violin teacher was Hans Wessely . However, her studies came to an abrupt end in 1905, forced by her father, after Percy Hilder Miles , Clarke's lecturer in harmony , proposed marriage to her (Miles died in 1922 and bequeathed her his own Stradivarius violin in his will). In 1907 she began studying composition at the Royal College of Music in London, where she became one of the first female students with Charles Stanford . On his advice, she shifted the focus of her instrumental training from the violin to the viola , which was only considered a serious solo instrument from around this time, and, in addition to her studies, took private lessons from Lionel Tertis , one of the most important violists of the time. Rebecca Clarke could not finish her studies at the Royal College, however, as she was kicked out of the house by her father in 1910 without any financial support. This final falling out with the father was preceded by an argument about his extramarital affairs.

Instrumental soloist and composer

In order to stay afloat financially, Clarke embarked on a successful career as a solo violist and became a member of various all-female chamber ensembles, including the Norah Clench Quartet . In 1912 she was appointed to the Queen's Hall Orchestra by Henry Wood , making her one of the first female orchestral musicians in a professional ensemble.

First stay in the USA

In 1916 Clarke moved to the United States , where her two brothers also lived. There she developed a lively concert activity, often together with the cellist May Mukle . Tours took her to Hawaii from 1918 to 1919, for example, and around the world in 1923 (including to the Far East and various British colonies). From 1917 she came into friendly contact with the American patron Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge . At their suggestion, in 1919 she submitted her sonata for viola and piano to the composition competition for the “Coolidge International Prize” in Berkshire . The jury favored two of the 72 pieces submitted: that by Clarke and a work by the well-known composer Ernest Bloch . In the end Bloch received 1st prize, but Clarke's 2nd prize sonata was premiered at the Berkshire Music Festival in 1919 to great acclaim. However, it has been speculated that "Rebecca Clarke" was a pseudonym of Ernest Bloch himself or that it was impossible to have Clarke who could have written such a thing. In 1921 Clarke again won the 2nd prize of the "Coolidge International Prize" with her piano trio . In 1922, Coolidge commissioned her to compose the Rhapsody for violoncello and piano, for a fee of $ 1,000. Clarke was the only woman who was promoted by this patron.

Return to England

In 1924 Clarke moved back to London (his father had died in 1920) and performed there as a soloist and chamber music partner with such renowned artists as Myra Hess , Adila Fachiri , André Mangeot , Gordon Bryan , Adolphe Hallis , Guilhermina Suggia and May Mukle. In 1927 she co-founded the piano quartet "The English Ensemble". As a soloist and chamber musician, she has also been heard on radio broadcasts and recordings on the BBC . From the late 1920s, her compositional productivity declined sharply. Between about 1929 and 1933 she had a liaison with the - married - singer John Goss . Clarke's mother died in 1935.

Permanent move to the USA

When the Second World War broke out, Clarke moved to the USA again. The years between 1939 and 1942 turned out to be the last creative phase worth mentioning. At that time Clarke lived alternately with the families of her two brothers and was unhappy because, in her eyes, they were developing as unfavorably as her father. In 1942 her Prelude, Allegro and Pastorale for clarinet and viola premiered in Berkshire.

In 1942, Rebecca Clarke began working as a nanny in Connecticut . From this point on, her compositional activity came to a complete standstill, and she hardly appeared as an interpreter.

Marriage and later life

Rebecca Clarke in 1976

In early 1944, Rebecca Clarke met James Friskin again, pianist and piano teacher at the Juilliard School , whom she had already known from her studies at the Royal College of Music. In the same year the two married, both 58 years old, and settled in New York. After the wedding, Rebecca Clarke ended her career as an interpreter and composed almost nothing. The song “God Made a Tree” from 1954 (only published in 2002) is considered the last of probably only three compositions that were composed after their wedding. Between 1945 and 1956 she gave irregular lectures on chamber music at the Chautauqua Institution in New York; In 1949 she became president of the Chautauqua Society of New York. In 1963, Rebecca Clarke was awarded the honorary title "Fellow of the Royal College of Music".

Clarke later sold the Stradivarius violin she had inherited from Miles and created the May Mukle Prize at the Royal Academy of Music, named after the cellist with whom she had performed frequently. This prize has been awarded annually to outstanding cellists to this day.

In 1967, after the death of her husband, Clarke began writing memoirs entitled "I Had a Father Too (or the Mustard Spoon) . " These were completed in 1973, but have not yet been published. In it she describes her early childhood, shaped by tense family relationships and her father's brutal treatment of his children. Clarke died in 1979 at the age of 93 in her New York City apartment . She remained mentally active into old age and worked on revisions of earlier compositions until shortly before her death.

plant

Role as a composer

Concert program from 1917 with works by Rebecca Clarke; their duo Morpheus is under the pseudonym "Anthony Trent".

Rebecca Clarke is now considered one of the most important English composers in the period between the two world wars. There are different assumptions about the background of her - despite her extraordinary talent - rather narrow oeuvre and the initially temporary and then final drying up of her creative power. Often reference is made to the image of women of the late Victorian age into which her childhood fell, which also shaped her own idea of ​​an “appropriate” gender role, reinforced by the highly authoritarian methods of her father. Clarke showed sympathy for the women's rights movement in England in the early 20th century (which she supported by taking part in benefit concerts), but she was out of the question for an active role with the suffragettes , as played by the 28-year-old composer colleague Ethel Smyth . She took some of her own works into the concert program under a pseudonym to avoid her own name appearing there too often. In 1917 her Morpheus for viola and piano was in the program under “Anthony Trent” (see illustration). Critics subsequently praised "Trent", while the works figuring under Clarke were largely ignored. This may have contributed to Clarke's sensitivity to negative reviews . Her husband James Friskin encouraged her (unlike Gustav Mahler for Alma ) to continue composing; Clarke was unable to reconcile family life and work as a composer.

Style features

Rebecca Clarke began as a song composer, later chamber music works and some choirs were added. Large-format orchestral works are completely absent. The viola is an important part of Clarke's work and uses the specific expressive possibilities of this instrument, which Clarke knew well as a longtime soloist. She wrote many pieces primarily for herself and the chamber ensembles in which she participated. Her music shows influences from various currents of the 20th century and is characterized by the late impressionist harmony of Debussy . Clarke was known to many leading composers of her time, including Bloch , Ravel and Vaughan Williams , who also left their stylistic mark on their work. Furthermore, influences of English folk music as well as Far Eastern music can be proven.

Clarke's viola sonata from 1919 is now considered the standard work for this instrument (published in the same year with the award-winning sonata by Bloch and the viola sonata by Hindemith ) and is characteristic of its style with its pentatonic opening motif, dense harmonies, emotional expression and rhythmic complexity. The Rhapsody, commissioned by Coolidge, with a duration of around 23 minutes, is probably Clarke's most ambitious and complex composition.

Between 1939 and 1942, Clarke's style became less dense, reflecting influences of neoclassicism . Dumka (1941), a work for violin, viola and piano only published in 2004, reflects the music by Bartók and Martinů , which uses Eastern European stylistic elements . The modally colored Passacaglia on an Old English Tune for viola and piano, also premiered in 1941 and by Clarke himself, is based on a theme ascribed to Thomas Tallis . Prelude, Allegro and Pastorale for clarinet and viola, again written in 1941, is also neoclassical in character (originally written for one of her brothers and her sister-in-law).

Clarke's earliest song compositions are salon-like in character; her later songs are based mainly on classical texts by Yeats and Masefield as well as traditional Chinese texts. "The Tiger," which she worked on for almost five years during her relationship with singer John Goss, is dark, brooding, and almost expressionist in effect. Most of Clarke's song compositions, however, are of a lighter character. Her choral works include the 91st Psalm and the choir from Shelley 's “Hellas” for five-part female choir larger-scale compositions.

reception

Of Rebecca Clarke's roughly 100 compositions, only 20 were printed during her lifetime, and her work has largely been forgotten. Significant public interest only began to stir after a radio broadcast on her 90th birthday, and interest in her music continued to grow at the beginning of the new millennium. The Rebecca Clarke Society, founded in 2000, played a major role in this. This promotes Clarke's work through concerts, world premieres, recordings and publications. She is particularly interested in the publication of previously unpublished works from Clarke's estate, as a good half of her work (as well as most of her writings) is still unpublished. “Binnorie”, a twelve-minute song based on Celtic folk music, was first discovered in 1997 and premiered in 2001. In 2002 two violin sonatas, composed in 1907 and 1909, were premiered. In the same year Morpheus appeared in print for viola and piano.

Chronology of the most important compositions

  • "Shiv and the Grasshopper", song based on a text by Rudyard Kipling (1904)
  • 2 violin sonatas (G major, D major), 1907-09
  • "Shy One", song based on a text by Yeats (1912)
  • Morpheus for viola and piano (1917-18)
  • Sonata for viola (or cello) and piano (1919)
  • Piano Trio for violin, viola and piano (1921)
  • Chinese Puzzle for Violin and Piano (1921)
  • He that dwelleth in the secret place (91st Psalm) for mixed choir (SATB, with SATB solos) (1921)
  • "The Seal Man", song based on a text by John Masefield (1922)
  • Rhapsody for cello and piano (1923)
  • "The Aspidistra", song based on a text by Claude Flight (1929)
  • Cortège for piano (1930)
  • "The Tiger" (1929–33), song based on a text by William Blake (1929–33)
  • Passacaglia on an Old English Tune for viola (or cello) and piano (? 1940–41)
  • Prelude, Allegro and Pastorale for viola and clarinet (1941)
  • "God made a tree" (1954), song based on a text by Katherine Kendall

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c Liane Curtis: Rebecca Clarke, in Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians , London, Macmillan, 2001.
  2. ^ A b c Liane Curtis: A case of identity. The Musical Times, May 1996, pp. 15–21 (PDF; 3.7 MB)

literature

  • Ludwig Finscher (Hrsg.): The music in the past and present . Kassel et al., Bärenreiter 2000, Person Teil Vol. 4, Sp. 1194–1195. ISBN 3-7618-1110-1
  • Daniela Kohnen: Rebecca Clarke • Composer and violist . Egelsbach et al., Hänsel-Hohenhausen 1999. [Deutsche Hochschulschriften 1157]. ISBN 3-8267-1157-2

Web links

Commons : Rebecca Helferich Clarke  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on October 5, 2006 .
personal data
SURNAME Clarke, Rebecca
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English composer
DATE OF BIRTH August 27, 1886
PLACE OF BIRTH Harrow , England , UK
DATE OF DEATH October 13, 1979
Place of death New York City , New York , United States