REBECCA CLARKE, born in England in 1886, died in New York in 1979 at 93. One of the great viola virtuosos, one of the first women to play professionally in an orchestra and famous for her viola sonata of 1919.
Clarke began composing at an early age, defying her father to study at the Royal Academy then the Royal College in London. She dared to complain about all his extra marital affairs, so he threw her out of the house and cut off her funds. Whereupon she had to leave the RCM and needing to support herself playing viola, was immediately selected by conductor Henry Wood for the Proms. That was the beginning of her many world tours, sought out by the greatest pianists and conductors of the age - Schnabel and Rubinstein, Heifetz and Pierre Monteux to name just a few.
Meanwhile, she had settled here in the States and that is where she composed her famous viola sonata, for a competition, premiered right here in the Berkshires in 1919. In a field of 72 entrants, she tied first place with Ernest Bloch. Reporters of the time did not believe that anything so good could possibly have been written by a woman...
Presented by composer Joan Tower for International Women’s Month in March, written and produced by Charlotte Wilson for WMHT
