Nearly eighty years after its composition, and eighteen years after publication, Clarke’s Binnorie: A Ballad has just received what I believe to be its first broadcast performance, and what is certainly its first recorded performance in any medium available to the general public, and it is stunning—the piece as well as the performance. I won’t tell you any more, apart from the basic facts: the performers are Lorna Anderson, soprano, and Malcolm Martineau, piano, and you cannot do better than that; the production is by BBC Radio 3; and Binnorie comes just after the 35:00 mark, as the grand climax of a magnificent program.

The text, as Clarke set it, is here. The piece is more than two Liebestods long, and at least five times as intense, so you will need a minimum of sixteen minutes without interruption: close the door, shush your companions, turn off your devices, and allow ample time to recover, even after the presenter realizes that she’s still got a radio-show to finish and breaks her long, shocked silence. Also be prepared to abandon any illusion that you may still be harboring, to the effect that Rebecca Clarke was in any way ambivalent about asserting or expressing herself. This is surely the masterpiece among Clarke’s vocal works, and fully the equal of any of her larger instrumental works, and she does not hold back.

The program is available through November 13, 2020, and we’re hondling the BBC to perpetuate it. In the meantime, on October 27, you get another crack at Binnorie in an entirely different context, in Heather Gallagher’s video performance on Sparrow Live (details here). Either way, it’s taken all these years for this great piece to find its feet, and now that it has, don’t postpone…. well, joy isn’t the right word, but whatever it is, don’t wait.