After a year’s silence, I write to memorialize the following:
Every note that Rebecca Clarke wrote for performance and left in a performable state has now been published—admittedly, by six different publishers, but a Gesamtausgabe is a Gesamtausgabe, no matter how you slice it, and hello, Bach and Beethoven.
Every note that Clarke wrote for voices and left in a performable state has now been published and recorded.
Every note that Clarke wrote for instruments and left in a performable state has now been published, and virtually every bit of that has been recorded.
The remainder, consisting of a single counterpoint exercise and two fragments, is in the works.
Details may be seen here, here, and here. I rest my case.
Favorable cards from Clarke’s tarot deck (Ferd. Piatnik e Figli [Ferd. Piatnik & Söhne], Vienna, n.d.), which she was given as a gift on 19 September 1928 and used to read Ravel’s fortune a month later—one of several experiences that ultimately led her to put away the cards for good, “as there were things I was simply not meant to know.”
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.
Rebecca Clarke 