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 a first British composers in the interwar period between World War I and World War II

Though she wrote little, due inside section to her ideas just about a role of a female composer, her function was recognized for its compositional skill. Virtually all of Clarke's works own eventually to exist as published (or even st& exclusively recently been published), and her function was largely forgotten fallowing she stopped composing. Scholarship & interest withwithin her act revived whilst she reached her ninetieth birthday in 1976.

Early life
Clarke was innate inside Harrow, England, to Joseph Thacher Clarke & Agnes Paulina Marie Amalie Helferich, and exposed at London's Royal College of Music. She grew higher the bilingual speaker of English & German. She was referred to as Beccle by personal & friends.

A paths of her life & career were strongly affected by her sex. Beginning her studies at a Royal Academy of Music, she was pulled out by her father after existence proposed to by teacher Percy Hilder Miles (who left her his Stradivarius violin in his will). She so attended a Royal College of Music, becoming one of Sir Charles Stanford's number 1 female composition students (Clarke herself erroneously claimed to become a first)..

With been kicked away from a home forswearing funds by her abusive father for criticizing his adulterous affairs. These trey works represent a height of her compositional career. From either so in her output was sporadic; she composed hardly in a least throughout the Thirties, e.g., nor did she write when you took her employment as a nanny, though she continued to perform.

A years from either 1939 to 1942 were to prove her previous important originative time period. By this point Clarke wwhen sleep inside the United States by having her brothers, & wwhen unhappy to watch the children turning out, in her eyes, as badly as their father. This period of unhappiness proved withal to become the fertile of these, however it did non survive yearn.

Later life and marriage
Clarke performed & wrote little fallowing 1942. She suffered from either dysthymia, a chronic form of depression. She married Juilliard piano instructor James Friskinside in 1944. Clarke did non assume herself breathe to balance personal life & 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 a responsibilities of personal life to exist as other significant than compositiin; she stopped writing, though she continued working on arrangements until shortly prior to her dying. She as well stopped performing when her marriage. Her endure composition, one of trio to watch her wedding, was probably the song entitled "God Made a Tree", composed within 1954 (published 2002).

Clarke late sold a Stradivarius she got been bequeathed, & established a May Muklé prize at a Royal Academy, known as when the violoncellist by having whom she ofttimes toured. A prize is however awarded annually to an spectacular violoncellist.

Fallowing her hubby's demise within 1967, Clarke began writing the memoir, entitled I Experienced a Father As well (or even the Mustard Spoon); it was completed inside 1973 however never published. Around it she describes her early life, marked by frequent beatings from either her father & strained personal relations, which went within to affect her perceptions of her proper place in life.

Music
The big part of Clarke's music features the viola, & will require benefit of the strengths of the instrument, when she was a office performing artist for numbers of years. Great deal of her output was written for herself & a everthing-female chamber ensembles she played inside, including a Norah Clench Quartet, the English Ensemble, an500 a d'Aranyi Sisters. She too toured worldwide, particularly sustaining violoncellist Will Muklé. Her works were strongly influenced by many trends around music of the 20th century; Clarke also knew several leading composers of the day, including Bloch & Ravel, to whom her act has been likened.

A impressionism of Debussy is often mentioned around connection by having her function, sustaining lush textures & modern harmonies; the Viola Sonata (published in a same month when the champion Bloch & likewise of the Hindemith Viola Sonata) is a particular lesson, by having its pentatonic opening theme, thick harmonies, emotionally intense nature & severity, and heavy, rhythmically complex texture. the Sonata remains a a share of standard repertoire for the viola to this day. Morpheus, composed the year sooner, was her number 1 expansive operate, when across a decade of songs & miniatures. A Rhapsody sponsored by Coolidge, is Clarke's virtually all challenging function, about Twenty-three proceedings yearn, by having complex musical ideas & ambiguous key contributing to the variable moods of the piece. Around counterpoint, "Midsummer Moon", written the super next season, occurs as lightly miniature, using a flutter-rather solo fiddle line.

Additionally to her chamber music for strings, Clarke wrote several songs. 100% of Clarke's early pieces come for solo voice & piano, Her setting of "The Tiger", which she worked in for 5 years to the exclusion of more works in the period of her riotous relationship using baritone John Goss (who was married at the period; Clarke was does'nt), is dark & pensive, near expressionist; most, nevertheless, come lighter around nature and severity. Her earliest works were parlor songs; she went on to build higher the work primarily drawing from either classic texts by Yeats, Masefield, and traditional Chinese writings.

When you took 1939 to 1942, a survive prolific time touching a prevent of her compositional career, her style grew less heavy & strongly developed, & other clear & contrapuntal, with emphasis in motivic elements and tonal structures, a influences of neoclassicism appearing in her works. Dumka (1941), a recently promulgated act for fiddle, viola, & piano, reflects the Eastern European folk styles of Bartók and MartinůRalph Vaughan Williams befriended Clarke in the 1940s, & conducted concerts featuring her music in many occasions.

Clarke's views on the social role of women—herself particularly—were incompatible using any ambition to compose music in the big forms. Her operate consists largely of short chamber pieces & songs; notably abstracted from either her work come heavy-shell pieces like symphonies, which despite her talent she never attempted to write. A few of her choral music, however, is big around conception—particularly a setting of Psalm 91, and a Chorus from either Shelley's "Hellas" for five a share women's chorus; each works were foremost recorded in 2003 shortly after their posthumous publication.

Her function was tons however forgotten for an extended period; it was revived within 1976 in the period of the radio station celebration of her ninetieth birthday, and by owning recent scholarship, particularly works per Rebecca Clarke Society, she has since begun coming back into public awareness. All over half of Clarke's compositions remain unpublished

Rebecca Clarke Society
A Rebecca Clarke Society was established around September 2000 to promote performance, scholarship, & awareness of the works of Rebecca Clarke, charted an event at Brandeis University celebrating her work. Based by musicologists Liane Curtis & Jessie Ann Owens and depending away from a Women's Studies Research Center 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, a second early board member, is okay, a editor of the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, a extremely regarded informatiin operate in a lot aspects of music, & was instrumental on increasing a publication's coverage of female composers, including Clarke, world health organization was cut from either a former 1980 edition.

Of particular interest is the publication of antecedently unpublished compositions from either Clarke's estate, include a few that were unknown potentially by her personal until fallowing her demise. "Binnorie", the xii-microscopic song according to Celtic folklore, was only found within 1997, & non premiered until 2001. Across Xxv antecedently unpublished works stand been manufactured available since a establishment of the Society. Many of Clarke's chamber works, including a expansive Rhapsody for violoncello & piano, & Cortège, her exclusively soft act, were number one recorded inside 2000 on a Dutton label, making utilise of poop manufactured available from either the Clarke estate. It organized & sponsored the world premieres of the 1907 & 1909 fiddle sonatas within 2002. Many concerts of her music keep around been wear across their efforts, particularly in the Boston area.

Additionally to promoting Clarke, a Society too encourages female composers by sponsoring a Rebecca Clarke prize for fresh music by women. A contest was begun within 2003 & is planned to become held each both years.

Selected works
For the other complete list, watch List of compositions by Rebecca Clarke.

"Shiv and the Grasshopper" (1904), vocal, text Rudyard Kipling "Shy One" (1912), vocal, text Yeats Morpheus (1917-18), viola & piano Sonata (1919), viola (or even violoncello) & piano Piano Trio (1921), fiddle, viola, & 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), violoncello & piano "The Aspidistra" (1929), vocal, text Claude Flight "The Tiger" (1929–33), vocal, text William Blake Passacaglia in an Old English Tune (?1940–41), viola (or even violoncello) & piano Prelude, Allegro & Idyll (1941), viola & clarinet "God made a tree" (1954), vocal, text Katherine Kendall