
Ninety-five years ago this evening, Rebecca Clarke gave a concert of her own works at London’s Wigmore Hall. As we explain in a new feature in our Gallery, this was at once a bold stroke, a big deal, and one of the defining moments in Clarke’s seven-decades-long career. To paraphrase an offhand remark she made about her old friend Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Sixth Symphony, “We think it did rather well for her.”
Nearly a century later—quite by happenstance, but almost to the day—Wigmore Hall will beam the pillars of Clarke’s program out to the world, as part of their indispensable Live Stream series. On October 29, the Gould Piano Trio steps in for the original all-star team (Adila Fachiri, May Mukle, and Myra Hess) in a program that comprises the trios of Clarke and Ravel, and the Mozart G major, K. 564. The Sonata follows on December 8, with Natalie Clein and Cédric Pescia performing Clarke’s alternate version for cello. Concerts in this series are free to view online for 30 days, but donations are welcome.
Clein’s recording of the Sonata has been widely praised—Gramophone noted “a tonal palette that ranges from thick charcoal-black to muted pastels, beautifully controlled and shaped in the service of Clarke’s ardent musical narrative”—and if the Goulds’ recording of the Trio, due out on October 30, is even a patch on their borderline-sublime survey of Stanford’s trios (here, here, and here—music that still feels startlingly original, and way more relevant to Clarke’s work than you might think), it will be very special indeed.
Life’s a banquet. Welcome home, old pal.
