Viola Sonata (1919)

Impetuoso

Vivace

Adagio - agitato

When Rebecca Clarke’s Viola Sonata was first performed, anonymously, in a composers’ competition at the Coolidge Festival in Massachussetts in 1919 several members of the jury apparently thought it was by Ravel. It is difficult to understand how they could get it so wrong. It is clear from the opening fantasia that, in spite of the occasional reminder of Debussy and César Franck later on, this is the work of an English composer. Although it didn’t win the competition, it is clearly also the work of a composer with a sophisticated harmonic technique, a liberated imagination and a highly developed structural conscience.

The skill of Clarke’s writing is attributable partly to her training at the RAM and RCM but mainly to her extensive experience of playing in chamber ensembles, including twenty years as violist with the English Piano Quartet. The scoring of the Viola Sonata demonstrates a thorough understanding not only of the viola and the piano but also of what they can do together. After that very English beginning, with the viola’s rhapsodic anticipations of material to come, the two instruments join in a dramatic introduction of the Impetuoso main theme in its definitive form. Still more resourceful viola-and-piano colouring is associated with the lyrical, exotically inflected second subject, particularly in the development section and in the poetically lingering end to the movement.

If the first movement suggests that Clarke was an admirer of Debussy the Vivace seems to confirm it. A fantastic scherzo, beginning with an ingenious combination of piano and pizzicato viola, it calls to mind Debussy’s evocations of the commedia dell’arte - interspersing nimble dance episodes with moments of pathos - but without actually echoing the French composer at any point.

While there is no slow movement as such, the Adagio section of the finale is more than a mere introduction. It is actually longer than the Agitato that follows it and is the most expressive part of the whole work. As long as it is concerned with the melody introduced in boldly unadorned monody by the piano in the opening bars, it retains a mainly contemplative mood. But when the piano offers a reminder of the exotic second subject of the first movement emotions become more intense, rising to an impassioned climax involving both themes before peace is restored. Another piano monody, accompanied by viola tremolandos, effects a transition into the Agitato, which is a purposefully conclusive and brilliantly achieved review of the main themes of the work.

Impetuoso

Vivace

Adagio - agitato

When Rebecca Clarke’s Viola Sonata was first performed, anonymously, in a composers’ competition at the Coolidge Festival in Massachussetts in 1919 several members of the jury apparently thought it was by Ravel. Unless they believed that Ravel had learned more from Vaughan Williams than his English pupil had learned from him, it is difficult to understand how they could get it so wrong. It is clear from the opening fantasia that, in spite of the occasional reminder of Debussy and César Franck later on, this is the work of an English composer. Although it didn’t win the competition - on Mrs Sprague Coolidge’s casting vote it came second, behind Bloch’s Suite for viola and piano - it is clearly also the work of a composer with a sophisticated harmonic technique, a liberated imagination and a highly developed structural conscience. After a similarly impressive Piano Trio won another second place for her at the Coolidge competition the following year, the consolation for Clarke was that she became the first (and only) woman composer to be awarded a Coolidge commission, for her Rhapsody for cello and piano, in 1923.

The skill of Clarke’s writing is attributable partly to her training - as a violinist at the RAM, as Stanford’s first composition student at the RCM, as a viola pupil of Lionel Tertis - but mainly to her extensive experience of playing in chamber ensembles, including twenty years as violist with the English Piano Quartet. The scoring of the Viola Sonata demonstrates a thorough understanding not only of the viola and the piano but also of what they can do together. After that very English beginning, with the viola’s rhapsodic anticipations of material to come, the two instruments join in a dramatic introduction of the Impetuoso main theme in its definitive form. Still more resourceful viola-and-piano colouring is associated with the lyrical, exotically inflected second subject, particularly in the development section and in the poetically lingering end to the movement.

If the first movement suggests that Clarke was an admirer of Debussy the Vivace seems to confirm it. A fantastic scherzo, beginning with an ingenious combination of piano and pizzicato viola, it calls to mind Debussy’s evocations of the commedia dell’arte - interspersing nimble dance episodes with moments of pathos - but without actually echoing the French composer at any point.

While there is no slow movement as such, the Adagio section of the finale is no mere introduction. It is actually longer than the agitato that follows it and is the most expressive part of the whole work. As long as it is concerned with the melody introduced in boldly unadorned monody by the piano in the opening bars, it retains a mainly contemplative mood. But when the piano offers a reminder of the exotic second subject of the first movement emotions become more intense, rising to an impassioned climax involving both themes before peace is restored. Another piano monody, accompanied by viola tremolandos, effects the transition into the agitato, which is a purposefully conclusive and brilliantly achieved review of the main themes of the work.