Sonata

Description

Rebecca Clarke composed the Sonata for Viola and Piano, attributed to the year 1919, when the composer was 33 years old. Clarke had moved to the United States in 1916, after being disowned by her father. She had been supporting herself with some success as a soloist.

The piece had its première at the Berkshire Music Festival in 1919, and was well received. It, along with the Piano Trio of 1921 and the Rhapsody for cello and piano of 1923, represent the zenith of her compositional career, though afterwards Clarke wrote hardly any more music. The sonata was first published in 1921 by Chester Music.

Clarke gives us an incipit on the first page of the sonata, a quote from La Nuit de mai (1835) by the French poet Alfred de Musset:

Poète, prends ton luth; le vin de la jeunesse
Fermente cette nuit dans les veines de Dieu.

Poet, take up your lute; the wine of youth
this night is fermenting in the veins of God.

The sonata is cast in three movements.