Intoxicating Vitality—Rebecca Clarke’s Sonata for Viola and Piano Remains Fresh and Vibrant

By Laurence Vittes | From the November/December 2025 issue of Strings

Rebecca Clarke’s Sonata for Viola and Piano, composed in 1919 for the Berkshire Music Festival, is one of those rare works that fits equally well on more than one instrument. As Terry King observes, “It is a perfect viola work that translates to a perfect cello piece of full range and expression with absolutely zero compromise to its intrinsic conception.” This flexibility has helped it travel far from its contested beginnings—when it tied for first place but lost the monetary prize—to being recognized today as a landmark, embraced by violists, cellists, and now even in orchestral guise.

Clarke’s life had Dickensian overtones. Born in a semirural suburb on the northwestern edge of London in 1886, she grew up under the thumb of a domineering father who abruptly cast her out when she resisted his control. Like Clara Wieck nearly a century earlier, she had to fight both paternal authority and social prejudice to pursue her art. At the Royal College of Music, she studied composition with Charles Villiers Stanford and viola with Lionel Tertis, and went on to forge a remarkable career as one of the world’s first professional female violists, performing across Britain and the United States.

Clarke prefaced her Sonata with an urgent epigraph from Alfred de Musset: “Poet, take up your lute; the wine of youth / Ferments tonight in the veins of God.” That intoxicated vitality—half ecstatic, half elegiac—runs through its three movements: the tempestuous Impetuoso, mercurial Vivace, and expansive Adagio. Submitted anonymously to the Berkshire Chamber Music Competition sponsored by Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, the Sonata tied for first with Ernest Bloch’s Suite. The cash prize was awarded to Bloch, and the judges were reportedly shocked when it was revealed a woman had written Clarke’s sonata. In retrospect, the work has been acknowledged as one of the competition’s true triumphs, a piece equal to anything produced in that remarkable year, which includes Hindemith’s Viola Sonata, Op. 11, No. 4.

And Coolidge quickly became Clarke’s most ardent champion, commissioning a mighty 30-minute Rhapsody for Cello and Piano in 1923 that deserves a rediscovery of its own. In fact, Clarke was the only female composer Coolidge ever commissioned—a fact that underlines the regard in which she was held by the most important American patron of chamber music.

Sidelined for decades afterward, the Sonata reemerged in the 1970s and has since seemed to flow naturally into the repertoire of a unique community of violists and cellists—each playing it as if it were written for them. It has been recorded dozens of times, beginning with pioneers like Rivka Golani and Patricia McCarty. The appeal has been strikingly international: The dozen new recordings since 2020 have come from violists in at least ten different countries. And it has taken on serious stature: Richard O’Neill and Jeremy Denk recently closed a Seattle Chamber Music Society concert with the Sonata after the pianist had played Beethoven’s Op. 111.

Playing the Sonata

Timothy Ridout, who recorded the Sonata as part of his two-CD tribute to Lionel Tertis in 2024, places Clarke’s score at the center of the modern canon. “Most viola students will learn it at some point in their studies,” he tells me. Having first studied the work as a student, he only fell fully in love with it during the pandemic. “It has heartbreaking moments and exhilarating moments, and the way she brings back the first theme in the last movement is absolutely brilliant. I really think it’s a great sonata and an important cornerstone of the repertoire.”

“It’s definitely not easy,” he says when asked about difficulty, “but it’s also not extremely hard. By the time you come onstage with it, you don’t really think of difficulty. The overriding thing is the quality of the music, which is very vivid to listen to and to play.”

Isabel Villanueva, professor at the Royal College of Music in London, describes the Sonata as “a feast for the ears: impressionistic atmospheres, suggestive harmonies, and a rich palette of colors that moves between the end of Romanticism and the dawn of modernist avant-garde.” For her, the technical challenge lies not in virtuosity alone but in detail. “The score is filled with precise indications—dynamics, articulations, nuances—that solidly shape the architecture of the work,” she says.

Her advice to players: “Before adding your personal stamp, absorb every detail she has written, she has marked into the score. From there, let your imagination take over.”

Audiences, Villanueva says, are often astonished. “Many discover both the work and its composer for the first time—and often call it the highlight of the concert. Programming it is not only an artistic privilege but also an act of women’s empowerment, giving overdue recognition to a composer whose voice defied the biases of her time.”

For Adrien La Marca, whose English Delight recording includes music from Dowland to Britten, the Sonata was love at first hearing. “It was the first sonata I worked on, at the age of 16, and since then it has never left my repertoire,” he says. The French violist has long been devoted to English music, and he wanted his first album to celebrate what he calls “a musical world that I love deeply, which is refined, poetic, and often underrated.” And Clarke’s Sonata became the centerpiece.

La Marca is drawn to its balance between lyricism and tension. “It sometimes brings to mind Debussy or Ravel, particularly in the refinement of textures,” he says. “The second movement conceals a moment of almost religious contemplation, and the last movement unfolds in a passionate song until a grand finale.”

He hears the hand of a violist behind every phrase. “She knows the instrument inside out and exploits its entire range, from powerful low notes to luminous high notes. Everything is very clear, very direct.”

The Cello Version

Although conceived for viola, Clarke indicated “viola (or cello)” on the published score, with an ossia in the third movement written specifically for cello. For Montreal-based Noémie Raymond, that small detail changed everything. “I discovered the Sonata while touring with pianist Zhenni Li-Cohen and violist Matthew Cohen,” she says. “They performed it together, and I completely fell in love with the piece.” However, it made her nervous for a while. “Until I saw ‘viola (or cello)’ in the score, I thought I was stealing from the viola repertoire.”

Because no dedicated cello part was available, Raymond learned the Sonata straight from the viola score in alto clef. That process convinced her, she says, that “it would be a shame not to use the full range of the cello. The resonance of the instrument lets the impressionistic and lyrical writing bloom, while giving depth and weight. I find the cello doesn’t just accommodate the Sonata, it enhances it.” The reception has confirmed her view: “Even some of my violist friends admitted it works perfectly well on cello.”

Cellist Natalie Clein recorded the Sonata for Hyperion in 2018 and finds that it “lies very comfortably and very beautifully on the cello. Sweeping melodies are so well suited to it, and the high registers in the scherzo are a joy to play.” She says she places its technical demands alongside Shostakovich and Prokofiev’s sonatas, though it is “not as difficult as Poulenc.” More importantly, she values the cello’s capacity for nostalgia: “In Clarke I hear old English folk tunes, French impressionism, and also a lot of America—mystical, dreamlike moments that move me deeply.” Clein copied out the part herself when she first played it and was relieved to learn a printed version is now available online.

For violist Paul Neubauer, the cello version feels fully legitimate. “Performing her Sonata on the cello seems fair to me. Whenever I consider ‘borrowing’ repertoire,” he says, “I follow the principle that the piece should sound just as good—or better—on the new instrument. Clarke’s Sonata passes that test with flying colors.” The recordings by Clein, Raymond, Sheku Kanneh-Mason, and others demonstrate how naturally the Sonata inhabits the cello’s voice.

Looking Ahead

The Clarke Sonata continues to expand its reach. Sarah-Jane Bradley has recorded Ruth Lomon’s orchestration with the Hallé, a version praised for its authenticity in emphasizing the romantic sensibility latent in the piano score. Timothy Ridout is set to perform a new orchestral arrangement with the Gävle Symphony Orchestra in Sweden. A century after Clarke was inspired by de Musset’s blazing lines, the Sonata still carries its charge: the wine of youth, fermenting in music that feels both timeless and fiercely alive.

Editions

Clarke’s Sonata was first published in 1921 by Chester Music. Later editions have appeared, including versions that explicitly include both viola and cello parts. The original manuscript—now available on IMSLP—confirm Clarke’s original cello indications. Across editions, performers continue to highlight Clarke’s remarkably precise indications—dynamics, articulations, and character markings—that demand thoughtful attention before interpretation. 

—LV