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Caroline Castleton’s glorious Rebecca Clarke, The Violist: Her Career and Performance Practice on an Emerging Solo Instrument in the Early Twentieth Century (DMA diss., University of Maryland, College Park, 2023) has just been published, and you need to get your copy now.

This is the absolutely the finest thing ever written about Clarke’s performing career, her instrumental technique, her writing for the viola, and her role as a public advocate for the instrument on a par with Tertis and Primrose, and ahead of both of them on the international circuit. It’s a vital resource for anyone seriously interested in Clarke, and—miracle of miracles—it is fully accessible to general readers, without stinting so much as a jot in academic rigor and technical detail.

Click here for an abstract, a full table of contents, and a generous sample, but to whet your appetite, consider that Castleton goes full-tilt on Clarke’s performance materials for her own Sonata and Dumka, along with bedrock repertoire by other composers, and a couple of her own arrangements that were first published only the other day, all generously illustrated with reproductions of the manuscripts and marked parts, historic photos, and newspaper-clippings. Appendices include a reproduction of Clarke’s autograph cadenza to the “Handel”/Casadesus Concerto, photographs of Clarke’s viola, and comprehensive tallies of Clarke’s BBC broadcasts and recital appearances.

Order here or here. It’s available in cloth and paper, in five different formats, and in PDF, for immediate download, all under Pub ID 30422290. You may also order by phone, at +1 800-521-0600 (press 2, then press 1), where Proquest’s incredibly kind and helpful dissertation team will help you, Monday through Friday, 8:00 am–6:00 pm US Eastern Time. In case of trouble, email them at disspub@proquest.com.

Sample pages below. You may also like to check out Castleton’s degree recital, which offers practical demonstrations of points developed in the dissertation.

Sample pages from Caroline Maxwell Castleton, Rebecca Clarke, The Violist: Her Career and Performance Practice on an Emerging Solo Instrument in the Early Twentieth Century (DMA diss., University of Maryland, College Park, 2023; Proquest 30422290).
Copyright © 2023, Caroline Maxwell Castleton.

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Unless we’ve missed something, every note that Rebecca Clarke wrote for the viola, her chosen instrument, is now in print, with the publication of her arrangements of works by Percy Grainger, Stanley Marchant, and Sir Hubert Parry, and her cadenza to the “Handel”/Casadesus Concerto in B Minor, by Sleepy Puppy Press. Print and digital editions are available.

These are terrific pieces in their own right—Grainger’s Sussex Mummer’s Christmas Carol is familiar in its original form, for cello or violin, but Parry’s Sarabande and Marchant’s setting of Londonderry Air, both originally for violin, will be welcome re-additions to the repertoire—and they’re of particular interest in showing how Clarke displayed her gifts as a player, while demonstrating the distinctive qualities of the instrument. To that end, Clarke’s markings have been painstakingly reproduced, including her fingerings, bowings, and timings. Caroline Castleton’s crisp introduction lays all this out for you.

Clarke stood nearly six feet tall in her prime, and she had exceptionally long, elegant arms and fingers, as shown in the cover art. She deliberately undermarked her publications, so as not to bind violists with different physical attributes, which means that you should take the markings in this album seriously, but not literally—”for interest only,” as they say. Still, it’s a fascinating set of insights into Clarke’s own style and methods, and thus uniquely valuable.

Also, barring some unexpected discovery, you now have Rebecca Clarke’s Absolutely, Totally, Positively 100% Complete Works for Viola, so what are you waiting for?