REBECCA CLARKE
THE COMPLETE SONGS
with Kitty Whately, mezzo-soprano
Anna Tilbrook, piano
FEATURING
Gweneth Ann Rand, soprano
Roderick Williams, baritone
Max Baillie, violin & viola
Members of the Seattle Chamber Music Society – James Ehnes, artistic director
Karen Gomyo & Erin Keefe, violins
Paul Neubauer, viola
Mark Kosower, cello
Signum Records
ABOUT THE ALBUM
Rebecca Clarke (1886–1979) wrote vocal chamber music over the whole of her career, from Wandrers Nachtlied, her first completed composition, in 1903, through her overhaul of Lethe, in the winter of 1976–77. Taken together, her songs and duets constitute one of the greatest and most distinctive contributions to the vocal repertoire of the twentieth century.
Despite composing around 100 works—including vocal music, chamber pieces, and piano works—only 20 were published during Clarke’s lifetime. By the time of her death in 1979, at the age of 93, her music had all but vanished from print. Rebecca Clarke – The Complete Songs is the first album to encompass Clarke’s entire song output, including nearly 30 world-première recordings of songs unpublished in Clarke’s lifetime, alongside new arrangements of Clarke’s The Seal Man and Binnorie, highlighting the viola, an instrument central to Clarke’s own performing career.
CRITICAL ACCLAIM
THE GUARDIAN
“Rich, radiant performances bring a forgotten voice to life
Rebecca Clarke’s songs have been edging on to the radar recently, but this recording, led by the mezzo-soprano Kitty Whately, tenor Nicholas Phan and pianist Anna Tilbrook, is the first time they have all been assembled together…Around a third of them are recorded for the first time, several are settings of German poetry that Clarke wrote as a student in London; some show her feeling her way towards her own sound, but the best – for example, the quietly imaginative Aufblick – are already distinctive.
Her mature style is dark, expansive and melodic, with a storytelling sensibility that shines in The Seal Man and then Binnorie, an extended setting of a Scottish ballad discovered only after Clarke’s death, recorded here with a solo part for viola, Clarke’s own instrument…another highlight is Daybreak, a setting of half a dozen lines by John Donne in which tenor and string quartet form five equally eloquent voices.
The performers are persuasive, with Whately in particular on superb form, her voice laser-focused and glowing.”
EUROPADISC
“Of the various women composers whose music has attracted long overdue attention in recent years, one of the most consistently rewarding and naturally gifted is Rebecca Clarke (1886–1979)…A handful of her songs appear with frequency on disc, but the vast majority are unknown. Thanks are due, then, to Signum Classics for collecting Clarke’s complete songs on a generously filled double album…
…What strikes the listener first is the variety of settings, with texts ranging from Shakespeare, Calderón and Goethe to Rosetti, Maeterlinck, Dehmel and Yeats…They inhabit a post-Romantic soundworld, with hints of the Impressionist influence that was to become a hallmark of Clarke’s style. Nicholas Phan’s performances are highly persuasive…
…It is, however, the English-texted settings of the 1910s and 20s that really reveal a song composer of genius. Try the limpid textures of The Cloths of Heaven (Yeats, 1927), with Phan’s sensitively shaded voice accompanied by exquisitely delicate piano figuration from Tilbrook…”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Rebecca Clarke: The Complete Songs is made possible with support from:
The Stanford Society
The Wavendon Foundation
The Winship Foundation
As well as individual support from Fotine Assimos, Jeff & Jamie Barnett, Steven & Robin Kunkel, Sem & Katherine Phan, Lisa Seischab, Neil Sekhri & Christopher Sherrill, Gina Soter, Peter Sparling, and Kenneth Sweetman.
Rebecca Clarke: The Complete Songs was supported in part by Nicholas Phan's solo recording projects, which is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization.
Contributions for the charitable purposes of Nicholas Phan's solo recording projects must be made payable to “Fractured Atlas” only and are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.