Rebecca Clarke: The Complete Songs album review – rich, radiant performances bring a forgotten voice to life
Whately/Phan/Tilbrook(Signum Classics)A superb survey of Clarke’s lyrical, long-overlooked songs reveals a composer of depth and dramaRebecca Clarke’s songs have been edging on to the radar recently, but this recording, led...
By Erica Jeal · The Guardian Culture
Whately/Phan/Tilbrook (Signum Classics) A superb survey of Clarke’s lyrical, long-overlooked songs reveals a composer of depth and drama 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. It’s quite a body of work – nearly 60 songs, dating from the early 1910s to the 1940s, after which Clarke largely stopped composing. 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. Continue reading...