This week’s piece is by Rebecca Clarke (1886-1979), an extraordinary composer, who mostly lost the unequal fight to gain acceptance as a composer in the early twentieth century. She was a viola player and most of her fairly small catalogue of works features this instrument. Her most well known piece (a viola sonata) nearly won first prize in a competition but the judges could not believe that a woman might have written this work so ended up awarding the prize to Ernest Bloch instead.
Another piece that was entered for the same prize is this piano trio (1921), in some respects builds on the colourful musical language of Debussy but has its own distinctive voice
Read more about Clarke on Wikipedia and on the Rebecca Clarke Society Website