Rebecca Clarke

First performed at the Wigmore Hall in 1921 Rebecca Clarke’s Trio has good claim to be considered her masterpiece. This expressive and emotionally complex score is one of the outstanding utterances in British chamber music of the period and critics speculate that the musical imagery strongly suggest it may be a response to the experience of the Great War. A strong defiant and elegiac composition and a very rewarding piece.

For Viola (or Violin) and Cello Clarke's duo is in two contrasted movements and was originally written in 1918 as a concert piece for the composer to play with the English cellist May Mukle.

These charming tender and ironic songs make an excellent concert suite and wonderful encores. They are scored for Voice and Violin.

For Viola and Piano. This piece is one of the finest compositions for viola by one of the instrument's greatest players. It is luxuriant in melodic inventions and startlingly beautiful in its instrumental colours. The piano is a full partner to the viola contributing an equal share of melodic interest and colouristic effects.

for unaccompanied SATB to words by Shelley. Music when soft voices die combines aspects of nineteenth-century English pastoral style with some of the tonal adventurousness of Vaughan Williams's Shakespeare settings. This is an exceptionally beautiful setting of this familiar text.

A duo concertante for violin viola and pianoThis work was written around 1940 placing it near the beginning of a series of Clarke's late compositions. It both looks forward to her lean linear avowedly modern conceptions and backwards to works which are explicit homages to ancient styles forms and composers. A strain from the gypsy-rondo of Brahms's Piano Quartet Op. 25 echoes throughout the opening pages and is heard again in the piece's remarkable conclusion.

for unaccompanied five-part women's chorus (SSSAA) Although quite short this is one of Clarke's boldest and in some respects most ambitious compositions. It sets Shelley's magnificent ode to the Evening Star.

This exquisite setting for SSA unaccompanied voices of a well-known Marian motet (in Latin) was the first of Rebecca Clarke's choral works ever to be published.A Piano Accompaniment part is scored for rehearsal purposes.

This lovely piece from the 1940s is back by popular demand. Ideal for study or recital. Also available for Viola and Piano.