Violist Silvia Mazzon and pianist Francesca Vidal turn to the music of Rebecca Clarke in a programme that moves from the sweeping architecture of her Viola Sonata to the intimate worlds of her shorter pieces. Poetry and virtuosity meet here in writing that gives the viola a remarkable freedom of expression, while drawing the piano into an equal and constantly changing dialogue.

Clarke (1886–1979) understood the viola from within. A composer and professional violist, she knew how to draw on its dark resonance, its singing upper register and the grain of its sound. Her music brings together the emotional breadth of late Romanticism, the harmonic colours of Impressionism and a distinctly modern appetite for contrast. These influences become part of a personal language: sometimes restless and forceful, sometimes elusive, often capable of changing atmosphere within a few bars.

Although the Sonata secured her an enduring place in the viola repertoire, much of Clarke’s wider output took longer to reach the recognition it deserved. Listening beyond that celebrated work reveals a composer whose imagination was equally compelling in expansive forms and concentrated musical statements.

The Sonata: a dialogue of colour and energy

At the heart of Mazzon and Vidal’s programme is the Sonata for Viola and Piano of 1919. Across its three movements, brilliant instrumental writing is inseparable from the work’s emotional course. Bold gestures give way to lyrical reflection; rhythmic energy sharpens the tension; quieter passages allow the music to breathe without losing its sense of direction.

The piano does far more than provide a background. It shapes the harmonic landscape, responds to the viola’s ideas and at times drives the argument forward. The result is chamber music in the fullest sense: two individual voices listening, answering and transforming one another. For the listener, the fascination lies as much in this interplay as in the viola’s virtuoso demands.

Dreams and miniature worlds

In Morpheus, composed in 1917–18, the scale becomes more intimate. Named after the figure associated with dreams in Greek mythology, the piece invites a different kind of attention: to the weight of a phrase, a suspended harmony, or the subtle shift from one instrumental colour to another. Its dreamlike atmosphere is sustained through the close relationship between the two instruments.

Six shorter pieces complete the programme. Alongside the Sonata’s large canvas and the distinctive atmosphere of Morpheus, these miniatures offer further perspectives on Clarke’s writing for viola and piano. Their brevity brings expression into focus, giving a melodic gesture or a change of texture space to speak with particular immediacy.

Rebecca Clarke at Da Vinci

Through this project, Silvia Mazzon and Francesca Vidal bring a substantial work and a group of more intimate pieces into the same listening experience. Together, they show how naturally Clarke’s musical imagination moves between dramatic intensity and understatement, and how much expressive possibility she found in the partnership of viola and piano.

It is an invitation to spend time with a composer whose music rewards close listening: to follow its conversations, notice its changes of light, and discover the strength of a voice that remains unmistakably her own.