| Viola Sonata | |
|---|---|
| by Rebecca Clarke | |
 The composer with viola in 1919 | |
| Based on | poem by Alfred de Musset |
| Performed | 1919 |
| Published | 1921 |
| Movements | three |
Rebecca Clarke composed the Sonata for Viola and Piano in 1919, [1] when the composer was 33 years old. She had been supporting herself with some success as a soloist. The majority was composed between April and July 1919.
The first reference to the Viola Sonata was upon its submission to a composition competition sponsored by Clarke's neighbour, Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge. [2] Out of 72 entries, Clarke's Sonata tied for first with a piece by the Swiss composer, Ernest Bloch. In the end Bloch was declared the winner, despite all the judges favouring Clarke—it was decided that declaring Clarke the winner would smack of favouritism on Coolidge's part. Clarke later said in an interview that she remembered a critic speculating that "Rebecca Clarke" was the pen-name of a male composer, as they could not imagine the possibility of a competent woman writing such music.[ citation needed ]
The piece had its première at the Berkshire Music Festival in 1919, and was well received. It, along with the Piano Trio of 1921 and the Rhapsody for cello and piano of 1923, represent the zenith of her compositional career. The sonata was first published in 1921 by Chester Music. [3]
Clarke gives us an incipit on the first page of the sonata, a quote from La Nuit de mai (1835) by the French poet Alfred de Musset:
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The sonata is cast in three movements.
Because of the many different obstacles the piece presents, as well as its highly idiomatic writing, it is becoming more and more a staple of the violist's repertoire. [4]
The Rebecca Clarke Society commissioned an orchestration of the Viola Sonata from composer Ruth Lomon. It was premiered in 2007 by violist Peter Sulski. Subsequent performances have featured soloists Esra Pelivahnli, Catherine Hanson, and Melissa Matson.
The viola ( vee-OH-lə, Italian: [ˈvjɔːla, viˈɔːla]) is a string instrument that is bowed, plucked, or played with varying techniques. Slightly larger than a violin, it has a lower and deeper sound. Since the 18th century, it has been the middle or alto voice of the violin family, between the violin (which is tuned a perfect fifth above) and the cello (which is tuned an octave below). The strings from low to high are typically tuned to C3, G3, D4, and A4.
Sonata, in music, literally means a piece played as opposed to a cantata, a piece sung. The term evolved through the history of music, designating a variety of forms until the Classical era, when it took on increasing importance. Sonata is a vague term, with varying meanings depending on the context and time period. By the early 19th century, it came to represent a principle of composing large-scale works. It was applied to most instrumental genres and regarded—alongside the fugue—as one of two fundamental methods of organizing, interpreting and analyzing concert music. Though the musical style of sonatas has changed since the Classical era, most 20th- and 21st-century sonatas still maintain the same structure.
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Sonata form is a musical structure generally consisting of three main sections: an exposition, a development, and a recapitulation. It has been used widely since the middle of the 18th century.
Rebecca Helferich Clarke was a British-American classical composer and violist. Internationally renowned as a viola virtuoso, she also became one of the first female professional orchestral players in London. Rebecca Clarke claimed both British and American nationalities and spent substantial periods of her life in the United States, where she permanently settled after World War II. She was born in Harrow and studied at the Royal Academy of Music and Royal College of Music in London. Stranded in the United States at the outbreak of World War II, she married composer and pianist James Friskin in 1944. Clarke died at her home in New York at the age of 93.
Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, born Elizabeth Penn Sprague, was an American pianist and patron of music, especially of chamber music.
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Ashan Pillai is a British violist. He was educated as a music and academic scholar at Merchant Taylors School, London and then at the Royal Academy of Music, London, the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, the Banff Center for the Arts, Alberta, Canada, and the Juilliard School, New York City. His principal teachers were John White, and distinguished American pedagogues and former students of William Primrose, Donald McInnes and Karen Tuttle.
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Matthew Jones is a British violist, violinist and composer primarily known for his international performance work as a soloist, recitalist and chamber musician. He also holds a Viola Professorship and is Head of Chamber Music at Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and runs an in-demand performance health consultancy practice. He is fluent in Italian.
Morpheus is a composition for viola and piano by the English composer and violist Rebecca Clarke. It was written in 1917 when Clarke was pursuing a performing career in the United States. The piece shows off the impressionistic musical language Clarke had developed, modeled on the music of Claude Debussy and Ralph Vaughan Williams, that is also apparent in her Viola Sonata. The harmonies are ethereal and otherworldly; the title is the name of a Greek god, who was especially associated with sleep and dreams.
The first Sonata for viola and piano, also known as Sonata in F, Op. 11, No. 4, by Paul Hindemith was composed in 1919. It is the fourth of five instrumental sonatas comprising his opus 11. This sonata and the following Op. 11 No. 5 for solo viola mark Hindemith's decision to abandon playing the violin in favor of its larger cousin.
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This article lists notable compositions within the viola repertoire. The list includes works in which the viola is a featured instrument. The list is ordered by composer surname.
