Two Uncommon Women: Comparison of Two Works by Grażyna Bacewicz and Rebecca Clarke “I have always hated…the same questions repeated by some silly male journalist which run: Can a woman be a composer? Can a woman be a full-blooded composer? Should a woman composer get married? Should a woman composer have children?... I will tell you: a woman endowed with creative powers can be a composer. She can get married, have children and travel extensively all over the world giving concerts. There is only one little essential needed: “motorek” [short for “ma motorek w dupie,” loosely translated, “inexhaustible energy and drive”] ---without it don‟t bother. -Grażyna Bacewicz, The 20th century was a time of great change, especially in respect to the rights of women. To succeed as a woman composer amongst primarily male counterparts was both a highly daring and unusual accomplishment. Thus, we consider the lives and works of two uncommon and successful women: Grażyna Bacewicz (1909-1969) and Rebecca Clarke (1886-1979). By rediscovering their compositional identities through discussion of style and influences, we begin to illuminate their unique place in music history, current relevancy amongst our own cultural and musical values, and significant impact on a female compositional tradition. Grażyna Bacewicz was born in Lódz, Poland, to a family of musicians, several whom performed semiprofessionally in a string quartet. She was a violinist in a local orchestra by the age of twelve, but had already decided by then that she would be a composer. After early studies at Lódz School of Music, she studied composition with Kazimierz Sikorski at the Warsaw Conservatory, where she received two degrees in violin and composition. From 1932-33 she studied composition with Nadia Boulanger in Paris, then began to do some world travel as a concertizing violinist, which allowed her to continue her violin studies: first with André Touret, and in 1934, with Carl Flesch. She joined the Polish Composers Union and began teaching at the Lódz Conservatory in 1945. In 1949, she became the principal violinist with the Polish Radio Orchestra, and by 1951 was married, had a child, and was concertizing her works, much like Rebecca Clarke, to much positive reception and acclaim. It was at this time she also subsequently composing her String Quartet No. 4 which won first prize in the International Composers‟ Competition. In 1952, she completed and premiered her Piano Sonata No. 2. As explained by Judith Rosen, stylistically, it is influenced by the music of Karol Szymanowski, particularly his Twelve Studies for piano, Opus 33, 1916, and his 1932 Symphonie Concertante finale for piano and orchestra, Op. 60, and is abundantly infused with both “folk-derived idiom” and her “rich blend of neoclassical style” in the most rhapsodic way possible.1 Surprisingly, though titled sonata, it does not follow the strict guidelines of classical form, as Bacewicz was no apparent lover of formulae. It contains three movements: a vigorous Maestoso---Agitato, followed by a more lyrical Lento, and completed with a grand, energetic Toccata. Incorporating folk melodies and experimenting with more avant-garde elements, such as tone clusters, atonality, and athematicism, all brilliantly stacked within a whirling stream of chromatic and pentatonic scales, Bacewicz treats Classical form as a guideline rather than a rule. This enables her to perfectly achieve compositional balance that explores new compositional ideas of her period and concedes with the “socio-realist” requirement for musical relevance set in place by the Polish government.

To give context, her country had recently suffered through Nazi occupation in World War II, and was now undergoing a difficult transition as the Soviet Union gained increasing control of many aspects of life, including art institutions, against which “social-realism” was highly discriminatory of anything “formalistic”, and could ban a composer‟s music from concert halls for years. Under Joseph Stalin‟s regime, all art, including music, was required to meet four requirements: it must be proletariat, typical, realistic, and partisan. “Bold music” of this period was better received, as it “depict[ed] the country‟s strength and wealth” and “prompted workers to action”.2 All this greatly affected the output of music by Polish composers, yet it seems unlike many of her male counterparts, Bacewicz‟s music avoided criticism from the Stalinist ideology because her unique fusion of nationalist folk themes and neoclassical style created music that met all the “required socio-realist criteria” or could otherwise not be deemed in opposition to communist ideals. Bacewicz was only 30 when the war began; by the time Poland was liberated from its period of isolation, she emerged a mature, 46-year-old artist whose creativity had remained unstifled by outside circumstances. In 1954 at the height of her career, she suffered a broken pelvis, ribs, and injuries to head and face in a serious automobile accident, yet even as friends detailed her “fighting for her life”, she remained positive and eager to return to composing.3 After a revolution of the Polish working class in 1956, she was exposed for the first time to serialism and the Western avant-garde, including music by Oliver Messiaen, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Pierre Boulez. This marked a great learning shift for her as a composer as she broke from traditional forms to embrace a greater degree of experimentation with more extended techniques, which are seen in her Music for Strings, Trumpets and Percussion (1958). Overall, Bacewicz has been referred to as Poland‟s Ruth Crawford Seeger as she was the first woman to achieve lasting fame in her country as a “truly modernist composer”.4 It is important to note that, while the music of her early period may appear more conservative than Seeger‟s, her early “quasi neo-classicism” was a brave and highly radical approach in a country that was just beginning to acknowledge its cultural isolation, especially for a woman. She was awarded many prizes during her lifetime, including the National Prize, Warsaw Prize for her humanitarian and artistic efforts during WWII, and third prize in the International Composer‟s Competition of UNESCO for Music for Strings, Trumpets, and Percussion. The fact that a female composer in a country undergoing great political change and unrest for 15 years could hold such a unique position of respect and national acclaim in Europe amongst her predominately male counterparts, while also fulfilling the roles of wife, mother, and publicly

concertizing her works on violin and piano, is most astounding. Today, her life and works are an encouragement to a generation of Polish women composers who have followed her. They are also a testament to qualities of her character that engendered her success: an unbreakable, indomitable spirit of determination, an adaptive, fiery, creative personality with an unrelenting, enthusiastic drive applied to all aspects of her life. Such a drive, though initially present, does not appear to have been easy to maintain amidst social opposition: such was the unfortunate case for Rebecca Clarke. Rebecca Clarke was born in 1886 in Harrow, England as the eldest child of Joseph Clarke and Agnes Helferich into a household of music lovers with staunch Victorian values.5 In an interview with Ellen D. Lerner, she describes her father as a strict, “very domineering” personality and “an awful cellist” who required the entire family to play string quartets when they were children. She began music lessons on the violin at a young age, and at sixteen began to study violin at the Royal Academy of Music where she received two prizes in composition, until a marriage proposal from her harmony and counterpoint teacher caused her father to withdraw her from the course. Shortly afterward, she showed an increased interest in composition and began study two years later at the Royal College of Music with Sir Charles Stanford as his first female student until the age of 22, when her father once again withdrew her from the course. Her relationship with her father was thus most troubled and in 1910, an argument with him resulted in her being thrown out of the family home. No longer able to finance her education, it was at this point in her life that she began to show great fortitude and courage. She accepted a place as a violist in the Norah Clench Quartet, which would be one of many professional chamber ensembles she would perform with throughout her career. From then on, she supported herself for the next two decades as a violist in many various ensembles in London; most notably the Queen‟s Hall Orchestra with five other women under the direction of Sir Henry Wood, and as a cofounder of the English Ensemble. Twice she received second place in a composition competition held as part of Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge‟s annual festival of chamber music held in Pittsfield, Massachusetts: the first occurrence was in 1919 when her Viola Sonata tied with Ernest Bloch‟s Suite for Violin and Piano, and the second in 1921 with her Trio for Piano, Violin and Cello. Like Bacewicz‟s Piano Sonata No. 2, Clarke‟s Viola Sonata is comprised of three movements, and makes frequent use of folksong influenced melodies. However, where this similarity emphasized connections to Polish nationalism for Bacewicz, with Clarke it is more likely the result of her British background and study at the Royal College of Music (RCM). She was close friends with Ravel, and greatly admired Vaughan Williams, whom she stated as an

influence in her Viola Sonata. Further analysis also reveals the influences of Claude Debussy and Ernest Bloch. Interestingly, a summary of Bloch‟s stylistic traits includes: “frequent changes of tempo and key, modality, cyclic form, and propensity for open 5ths and 4ths”, a definition that can also most notedly also be applied to Clarke‟s music.6 However, as Liane Curtis states in A Rebecca Clarke Reader, Clarke‟s musical language “combines principals from different tonal systems: diatonicism, modality, chromaticism, whole-tone writing, and octatonicism … without ever seeming forced or unnatural. Clarke knew a great deal of music … it is most likely she subconsciously re-created in her music sounds that she had heard in the music of others.”7 In other words, her Viola Sonata shows a composition maturity and balanced blending of the many tonal techniques at her disposal in a way that uses the colors, harmonic opulence, and strengths of both instruments in an intelligent and poetic way. Though not a pianist, she fully considers the colors and timbre in both instruments, as well as other technical writing for strings, including fingered and open harmonics, pizzicato, block chords and string crossings, all while keeping traditional sonata form. Overall, one of her greatest compositions and a significant addition to standard viola repertoire, Clarke‟s Viola Sonata illustrates both the contemporaries who influenced her work and highlights her adept ability to fuse their styles within her own unique voice. In 1944, Rebecca Clarke married American pianist and composer James Friskin, a former classmate from her time at RCM. They settled in New York, and even though James encouraged her to compose, her compositional output slowed until her last completed work in 1954, as for various reasons she “felt unable”. With a deferential attitude towards her music and sensitive to the criticism she had received, she put her viola in a closet, and instead, maintained an active schedule as a teacher, lecturer, and writer, contributing essays on “Bloch” and the “Viola” in Cobbett’s Cyclopedic Survey of Chamber Music. It was not until the 1970‟s that her work and name as a composer began to experience a revival, and she began to accept the merit and importance of her identity as a composer; she died in 1979 at the age of ninety-three. An accomplished writer, many of the writings, journals, and interviews we have from her are a valuable resource of insight into the artist‟s mind, which unfortunately for the bright, young composer portray an “acceptance of her erasure from music history”. The following is written by Liane Curtis: “The large body of music, unknown and unpublished in her lifetime, would languish for two more decades in her estate. That she made no mention of her music in her will, and made no provision for the care or promotion of her music after her death, is a sad testament to the weakness of her identity as a composer; at the time of her death she was only beginning to reestablish her belief in herself. Throughout the interviews and her writings, her self-deprecating attitude toward her

music is a recurring theme, which makes our task to understand her true significance as a composer more difficult.”8 Often, when we attempt to understand a composer‟s identity today, we engage in the study of their music, but also consider the historical factors: considering how they overcame opposition of many forms, combined with the fortitude of their personality present in their works, speaks most impressively to their characters and allows us to rediscover their identities as composers. With women composers, we must advance our understanding further by also considering the instability of the early 20th century. Such a challenge can only lead to better understanding and social enlightenment, but also bespeaks a question in and of itself: within the context of a male dominated Western canon, why are the works of women composers, such as Bacewicz and Clarke, as well as those compositions of other minorities, not better represented, or held to the same esteem, as their white male counterparts? Why does the music of women not survive? It is only when we consider the audiences of any given culture that we may stumble across the truth. In the case of the two women discussed here, the greatest challenge laid in establishment. At the peak of their compositional success, they were acknowledged most enthusiastically by their audiences and their peers, yet posthumously, have been forgotten by the public. In the Norton Grove Dictionary of Women Composers, the following observation regarding women composers is made: “The move to unearth women artists, in music as in any other art, is not a neutral act, any more is their previous neglect… For instance, in the past, to compose, let alone be heard, a woman has needed to conquer social restriction and taboo. While her domestic life has often limited practical opportunities for composing, even when she has managed to find the time and space for this activity, she has been far less able than her male peers to enjoy valuable interaction with orchestras and opera companies and to develop her technique. Her success…particularly before the present day, should be seen as doubly significant.” The author goes on to state that because of this, many women thus wrote music of smaller forms, which is easily labeled less prestigious in comparison to larger, more “serious” forms. When a woman ventured into more „serious‟ forms, particularly in the 20th century when great emphasis is placed on innovation, her work as a woman in a male-dominated field was frequently seen as “subversive or revisionary rather than pioneering.” Rebecca Clarke started much in this way: being quite fond of poetry, she began composing with shorter works for voice and piano based on poetry, yet the success of her Viola Sonata was highly opposed: critics claimed she must have had help from Bloch himself, or that her name was a pseudonym for a male. Sadly, the notion of „establishment‟, so necessary for the success of any composer in the past, thus created “an unreliable yardstick for the success of women composers”. For a creative woman to succeed as a composer in a man‟s world prior to and during the 20th century, even with the revolutionary awareness of women‟s rights, she had to transcend or reject “the qualities that are usually associated with feminine productions” and essentially become an “honorary male”.9 Author Sylvia Glickman states it best: “A portrait of a civilization is painted with many brushes---depicting its history, geography, politics, sciences, religion, and arts. When a

significant portion of the population is omitted, a skewed picture emerges.” She also quotes the Ottoman Turkish writer Namîk Kemal‟s quote from 1867 regarding women‟s rights in the Middle East: “Our women…constitute half and perhaps more than half of our species. Preventing them from contributing to the sustenance and improvement of others by means of their efforts infringes the basic rules of cooperation to such a degree that our national society is stricken like a human body that is paralyzed on one side.”4 And so, a question arises from the rusty scaffolds of past inequity and the domineering constructs of societal frameworks: why study these women, and women composers in general? Beyond recent explorations regarding the concept of an innate woman‟s voice, does the absence of their works from our educational institutions and concert halls truly signify a great loss to our musical development? What portrait of our understanding does this paint for our students, children, and the generations to come? To the extent of my current knowledge, the study of these women is immensely relevant because in them, we see gradual evidence of an evolving compositional tradition that is entirely female: the formational presence of a woman‟s voice that is neither hindered nor sapped by inconsistency or social doctrine of current society, nor abused and overshadowed by the advantages of a man‟s historical and societal standing. Her compositions are pioneering and personal ideology and style entirely her own; no longer limited to the threshold of a man‟s compositional works or deemed revisionary and subversive, as works of many women in the past centuries before her were. In conclusion, we see the unfairness that social biases and expectations have placed upon women in the past, and with newfound empathy, recognize and improve upon them in our homes, schools, and personal education as respectful, well-versed musicians. As we celebrate these composers, of all backgrounds, nationalities, and styles just as we consider music a celebration of life--- knowing their combined experiences render the modification if our own perspectives, and thus the overall betterment of our humanity. This unilateral sharing extends into the greatest work we will ever do as artists, musicians, and teachers, inspiring better solutions, ideas, and the increased ability and appreciation of the oft rejected art of collaboration.

1 Rosen, Judith. “Grażyna Bacewicz.” Essay. In New Historical Anthology of Music by Women, edited by James R. Briscoe, pg. 386–88. 2 Levrier-Jones, George. “History of Art in the Soviet Union: Propaganda, Rebellion, and Freedom in Socialist Realism - History Is Now Magazine, Podcasts, Blog and Books: Modern International and American History.” History Is Now Magazine, 21 May 2019, www.historyisnowmagazine.com/blog/2019/5/19/history-of-art-in-the-soviet-union-propaganda-rebellion- and-freedom-in-socialist-realism. 3 Rosen, Judith. Grażyna Bacewicz: Her Life and Works. Los Angeles, CA: Polish Music History Series, 1984, pg. 26-27. 4 Mueller, Adeline. “6. The Twentieth Century.” Essay. In From Convent to Concert Hall: a Guide to Women Composers, edited by Sylvia Glickman and Martha Furman Schleifer, 217–91. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2003. pg. 242-244.

5 Jones, Bryony. “Rebecca Clarke.” Essay. In New Historical Anthology of Music by Women, edited by James R. Briscoe, 295–97. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2004, pg. 295. 6 Michael Kennedy, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music, 3rd ed. pg. 78. 7 Curtis, Liane, ed. A Rebecca Clarke Reader. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2005, pg. 93. 8 Curtis, Liane, ed. A Rebecca Clarke Reader. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2005, pg. 160. 9 Sadie, Julie Anne, and Rhian Samuel. “2: Women's Music: A Twentieth-Century Perspective.” Preface. In The Norton Grove Dictionary of Women Composers, 13–17. London, U.K.: Macmillan, 1995.