Contrasts

Rebecca Clarke (1886-1979)

We are delighted to be able to present a second piece by Clarke this season. Clarke is a featured musician in Leah Broad’s book Quartet: How Four Women Challenged the Musical World. 

The Three Pieces— “Prelude,” “Danse Bizarre,” and “Nocturne”– were written in 1909-1910, while Clarke was still an RCM student. Clarke believed the manuscripts were lost, but in 2000 they were found in a box in the back of a closet.

These pieces are gratifying to play (clearly written by a composer who understands the instruments), full of both lush melodies and, in “Danse Bizarre,” all the technical confabulation you could desire. The “Nocturne” is a truly stunning piece, daring to start with an extended passage of the violins in octaves, and ending by almost floating away into nothing.

Check out this rich website dedicated to Rebecca Clarke’s life and work.

Life

Katerina Souponetsky (b. 1988)

Kat Souponetsky (née Katerina Kramarchuk) is a composer, pianist and educator based in Philadelphia whose music has been described as “quick-witted, tightly constructed and ruefully introspective, with propulsive, sometimes jazzy rhythms and suave textures” (The Oregonian). Her works have been performed and broadcasted across the globe at respected venues such as The Louvre, Bargemusic, The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Dresden Music Festival, Peter Jay Sharp Theater, Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, Le Fontainebleau Château, U.S. Airways radio, and the Isabelle Stewart Gardner Museum.

Dorothy Howell (1898–1982)

Today the name of Dorothy Howell is sadly all but forgotten, yet she was one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century, and is the 4th and final composer we share with you from Leah Broad’s book Quartet: How Four Women Challenged the Musical World.  At 15 years old, Howell attended the Royal Academy of Music as a piano player and composer.  She lived at a convent that was just a short walk from the Clarke family home, so she quite literally followed in Rebecca Clarke’s footsteps. Howell was known as an impressive pianist during her time.  When the famous pianist Harriet Cohen heard Howell’s performance of Rachmaninoff’s 2nd piano concerto she found her afterwards and told  her it was ‘quite ripping, topping, gorgeous, magnificent”.

Howell’s biggest success came in when she wrote the symphonic poem, Lamia, based on the William Keats poem. Lamia was premiered in September 1919 at the Queen’s Hall. At the conclusion the audience erupted into ecstatic applause and she received immediate fame, dubbed ‘The English Strauss’ in a review following the premiere.

Howell was unimpressed with modern music which was moving towards atonality. The academic musical world was obsessed with these new sounds and perhaps it was challenging for her career that she was not prepared to follow this path. Though she continued to have success as a composer she was very modest in public and struggled with the pressures of rejection, which would approve difficult for her in the future.  She began teaching at the Royal Academy in 1924 at 26 years of age and retired at 72. She remained active as a pianist and teacher throughout her life and was beloved by her students. Check out her piano concerto!

Béla Bartók (1881-1945)

Bartok was a Hungarian composer, pianist and ethnomusicologist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century.

Bartok’s Contrasts for violin, clarinet and piano, is a tour-de-force especially for the violin and clarinet as the piece was co-commissioned by Bartok’s violin friend, Joseph Szigeti and American jazz clarinetist, Benny Goodman. Bartok uses an intriguing combination of traditional classical, Hungarian and Romanian folk, and jazz idioms in a three movement work.

In the composers own words:
“Competitions are for horses, not artists”