Rebecca Clarke

Rebecca Helferich Clarke (Friskin) (August 27, 1886–October 13, 1979) was an English classical composer and violist best known for her chamber music featuring the viola. She is considered one of the most important British composers in the interwar period between World War I and World War II{{ref|grove}}; she has also been described as the most distinguished British female composer of her generation. {{ref|norton}}

Later life and marriage

Clarke performed and wrote little after 1942. She suffered from dysthymia, a chronic form of depression{{ref|woolf}}; and the lack of encouragement—sometimes outright discouragement—she received for her work also stayed her pen. Perhaps the greatest barrier to composition was her own idea of her proper role{{ref|id}}. She married Juilliard piano instructor James Friskin in 1944. Clarke did not consider herself able to balance family life and composition: "I can't do it unless it's the first thing I think of every morning when I wake and the last thing I think of every night before I go to sleep." Clarke took the responsibilities of family life to be more important than composition; she stopped writing, though she continued working on arrangements until shortly before her death. She also stopped performing after her marriage. Her last composition, one of three to follow her wedding, was probably a song entitled "God Made a Tree", composed in 1954 (published 2002).

Related Topics:
Dysthymia - Depression - Role - Juilliard

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Clarke later sold the Stradivarius she had been bequeathed, and established the May Muklé prize at the Royal Academy, named after the cellist with whom she frequently toured. The prize is still awarded annually to an outstanding cellist{{ref|sonata2}}.

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After her husband's death in 1967, Clarke began writing a memoir, entitled I Had a Father Too (or the Mustard Spoon); it was completed in 1973 but never published. In it she describes her early life, marked by frequent beatings from her father and strained family relations, which went on to affect her perceptions of her proper place in life{{ref|id}}; her father's disapproval of her musical ambitions as well as his harsh treatment of her and her three siblings are speculated to have affected her compositional career. Clarke died in 1979 at her home in New York City, at the age of 93, and was cremated{{ref|oxford}}.

Related Topics:
Memoir - New York City - Cremated

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