2 Duos for viola and cello (1916?)

Lullaby

Grotesque

One of the pioneers in the campaign to esablish the viola as a solo instrument in the early decades of the 20th century, Rebecca Clarke might have achieved even more for it if she had not had to face continual discouragement and if she had been able to sustain her creative energy for longer than she did. She had studied composition with Stanford at the Royal Academy of Music and viola with Lionel Tertis and, given her exceptional musical talent, she was well equipped to make a substantial contribution to the viola repertoire. Her career as a composer seems to have peaked, however, in a few years round 1920: her Viola Sonata, now her best known work, came second in a competition sponsored by Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge in 1919, her Piano Trio achieved similar distinction in the same competition two years later and her Rhapsody for cello and piano was actually commissioned by Coolidge in 1923.

The two Duos for viola and cello were written a few years before the Viola Sonata, certainly before 1917 when Clarke is known to have played them in New York with May Mukle, with whom she toured and who was later to become a fellow member of the English Ensemble. Perhaps their most attractive quality is their scoring. Certainly, the veiled sound of the viola introducing the gently rocking theme of Lullaby over a simple cello accompaniment, the expressive voice of the cello taking the melody over double-stopped harmonies on the viola and developing it to to a discreetly passionate climax, the sleepy ending, all these are highly engaging. In direct contrast, Grotesque is a a brightly coloured, rhythmically witty caricature of a dance, a study in clowning comparable to the Eccentric movement in Stravinsky’s Three Pieces for string quartet.