Editing Rebecca Clarke (composer) (section)

==Later life ==
Clarke, in 1924, embarked upon a career as a solo and ensemble performer in London, after first completing a world tour in 1922–23.<ref name=reich>{{cite book|last=Reich|first=Nancy B|title=A Rebecca Clarke reader|year=2005|publisher=Rebecca Clarke Society|isbn=978-0-9770079-0-5|pages=10–18|editor=Curtis, Liane|chapter=Rebecca Clarke: An Uncommon Woman}}</ref> In 1924 she became a founding member of the [[Gordon Bryan (pianist)|Aeolian Players]] and in 1927 she helped form the English Ensemble, a piano quartet that included herself, [[Marjorie Hayward]], [[Kathleen Long]] and [[May Mukle]]. She also performed on several recordings in the 1920s and 1930s, and participated in [[BBC]] music broadcasts. Her compositional output greatly decreased during this period.<ref name="oxford"/> However, she continued to perform, participating in the Paris Colonial Exhibition in 1931 as part of the English Ensemble.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Clarke|first=Rebecca|title=La Semaine Anglaise at the Paris Colonial Exhibition|journal=BMS Bulletin|date=Autumn 1931|volume=New Series I|pages=7–11}}</ref> Between 1927 and 1933 she was romantically involved with the British [[baritone]] [[John Goss (baritone)|John Goss]], who was eight years her junior and married at the time.<ref name="id" /> He had premiered several of her mature songs, two of which were dedicated to him, "June Twilight" and "The Seal Man". Her "Tiger, Tiger", finished at the time the relationship was ending, proved to be her last composition for solo voice until the early 1940s.<ref>{{cite book|author=Stein, Deborah|year=2005|chapter='Dare seize the fire': An introduction to the songs of Rebecca Clarke|editor=Curtis, Liane|title=A Rebecca Clarke Reader|publisher=Rebecca Clarke Society|pages=43–78|isbn=978-0-9770079-0-5}}</ref>

In 1936 Clarke sold the Stradivarius she had been bequeathed to a dealer in New York. At the outbreak of World War&nbsp;II, Clarke was in the US visiting her two brothers, and was unable to obtain a visa to return to Britain. She lived for a while with her brothers' families and then in 1942 took a position as a governess for a family in Connecticut.<ref>{{cite book|author=Ammer, Christine|year=2001|title=[[Unsung: A History of Women in American Music]] |edition= 2nd|page= 167|publisher=Amadeus|isbn=1-57467-058-1}}</ref> She composed 10 works between 1939 and 1942, including her ''Passacaglia on an Old English Tune''.<ref name="curtis-reader"/> She had first met [[James Friskin]], a composer, concert pianist, and founding member of the [[Juilliard School]] faculty, and later to become her husband, when they were both students at the Royal College of Music. They renewed their friendship after a chance meeting on a Manhattan street in 1944 and married in September of that year when both were in their late 50s. According to musicologist Liane Curtis, Friskin was "a man who gave [Clarke] a sense of deep satisfaction and equilibrium."<ref name="id" />

Clarke has been described by [[Stephen Banfield]] as the most distinguished British female composer of the inter-war generation.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|author=Banfield, Stephen|title=Clarke, Rebecca (Thacher)|encyclopedia=The Norton/Grove Dictionary of Women Composers|publisher=W.W. Norton and Co|year=1995|page=120}}</ref> However, her later output was sporadic.<ref name="oxford"/> It has been suggested by musicologist Liane Curtis that Clarke had [[dysthymia]], a chronic form of [[mood disorder|depression]];<ref name="woolf">{{cite journal|author=Curtis, Liane|title=When Virginia Woolf met Rebecca Clarke|journal=Newsletter of the Rebecca Clarke Society|date=Fall 2003}}</ref> the lack of encouragement—sometimes outright discouragement—she received for her work also made her reluctant to compose.<ref name="id" /> Clarke did not consider herself able to balance her personal life and the demands of composition: "I can't do it unless it's the first thing I think of every morning when I wake and the last thing I think of every night before I go to sleep." After her marriage, she stopped composing, despite the encouragement of her husband, although she continued working on arrangements until shortly before her death. She also stopped performing.<ref name="oxford"/><ref name="id" />

In 1963 Clarke helped establish the May Mukle prize at the Royal Academy. The prize is still awarded annually to an outstanding cellist.<ref>Schleifer, Martha Furman (2000). Program notes to Clarke's ''Sonata for Viola and Piano''. Hildegard Publishing Company.</ref> After her husband's death in 1967, Clarke began writing a [[memoir]], titled ''I Had a Father Too (or the Mustard Spoon)''; it was completed in 1973 but never published. In it she describes her early life, marked by frequent beatings from her father and strained family relations which affected her perceptions of her proper place in life.<ref name="id" /> In the 1970s, as interest in her music, and in tonal compositions and in women composers, surged, she gave a few more major performances in New York.<ref name="rcc-life" /> Clarke died on 13 October 1979 at her home in [[New York City]] at the age of 93, and was [[cremation|cremated]].<ref name="oxford" />

Clarke is now established as one of the most important 'women composers' of her generation. However, as she told a journalist, "I would sooner be regarded as a 16th-rate composer than be judged as if there were one kind of musical art for men and another for women."<ref>{{Cite web |last=Broad |first=Leah |date=May 2023 |title=Clarke, Rebecca |url=https://www.classical-music.com/features/composers/rebecca-clarke |work=Classical Music}}</ref>