Rebecca Clarke (1886-1979)
Music for violin, viola and piano
Ekaterina Valiulina (violin)
Giulia Panchieri (viola)
Margherita Santi (piano)
rec. 2024, Tranquilo Studio, Milan
Brilliant Classics 97575 [66]

Since Rebecca Clarke’s Viola Sonata entered the twentieth-century repertoire it’s enjoyed many fine and very divergent recordings. This latest version from the youthful Italian team of Giulia Panchieri (viola) and Margherita Santi (piano) exemplifies a trend for stable tempi that ensure the work takes around 22-23 minutes, as do, to take a couple at random, the pairings of Tabea Zimmermann and Kirill Gerstein on Myrios Classics and Judith Ingolfsson and Vladimir Stoupel on Oehms. This sensible approach, therefore, avoids the extremes of Matthew Jones (20:30) and Philip Dukes (27 minutes), both of them on Naxos. I mention this only to suggest that the sonata has encouraged a gratifyingly wide range of interpretive stances though also to imply my preference.

As well as their pragmatic tempi, the Italian pairing evoke the impressionistic as well as the declamatory elements of the Sonata very well. Santi’s piano chording is evocative and Panchieri’s tone is well-centred and capable of folkloric extension in the sonata’s pastoral moments. Rightly they take the central Scherzo at a vivid tempo, their ensemble is solid and they bring a fluid approach to the finale, etching its episodes with youthful verve, whether in the opening Adagio or in the vitality of the Allegro. I’m not shifting my allegiance from the Zimmermann-Gerstein team but this is a welcome addition to the discography.

The album is devoted to the music for violin, viola and piano so contains a number of smaller pieces from two main periods of her compositional life – 1913-24 and 1941-44. It was probably her focus on chamber music – she was a leading violist and made a recording as such in the 1920s – and on song composition that led her away from writing orchestral music but what she wrote has great distinction. There’s the evocative Lullaby for violin, played with warmth by Ekaterina Valiulina and the quietly melancholic Lullaby (arrangement of an ancient Irish Tune) for the viola. The sliver of a Chinese Puzzle explores the vogue for chinoiserie and Midsummer Moon exudes Vaughan Williams-like flourishes.

The works from the 1940s date from her emigration to America. The Passacaglia on an Old English Tune is noble and elevated whilst the lovely I’ll Bid My Heart Be Still is as moving as ever and, as here, all the better when not played too quickly. The three musicians finally come together in the Trio Dumka, a lively, colourful work that explores the dumka without undue seriousness but ends quietly and a touch withdrawn. Given the date of composition I’ve always wondered whether it was intended as a tribute to Dvořák, the centenary of whose birth fell that year.

This is an attractive contribution to Clarke’s increasing representation on disc. If the recording quality is rather too up-front for my tastes, the performances provide sensitivity and athleticism. Individual allegiances may lie elsewhere (Tabea Zimmermann for the Sonata, Lorraine McAslan for the violin works) but this will make a good and relatively inexpensive entrée for those unfamiliar with her work.

Jonathan Woolf

Contents
Morpheus for viola and piano (1918)
Viola Sonata (1919)
Lullaby for violin and piano (1918)
Lullaby, arrangement of an ancient Irish Tune for viola and piano (1913)
Chinese Puzzle for violin and piano (1921)
Passacaglia on an Old English Tune for viola and piano (1941)
Midsummer Moon for violin and piano (1924)
I’ll Bid My Heart Be Still, for viola and piano (1944)
Trio Dumka for piano trio (1941)

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