page_title: Edward Clark (conductor)
section_title: Later life
hierarchical_section_title: Edward Clark (conductor) / Later life
caption_attribution_description: English: Poster for Edward Clark concert, Moscow Русский: Афиша концерта Эдварда Кларка 10 и 12 января 1934. "Радиотеатр. Горького 17" - это в здании Центрального телеграфа, которое тогда и было 17 (а театр Ермоловой - тогда имени ещё жиовго Мейерхольда - был под номером 15)
context_page_description: Thomas Edward Clark was an English conductor and music producer for the BBC. Through his positions in leading new music organizations and his wide-ranging contacts with British and European composers, he had a major impact on making contemporary classical music available to the British public for over 30 years. He was a leading figure in the BBC's Concerts of Contemporary Music between 1926 and 1939, and he played a significant role in the founding and early development of the BBC Symphony Orchestra. He held prominent positions in the International Society for Contemporary Music from its inception in 1922, and was its President from 1947 to 1952.
context_section_description: If not a communist, Clark was always a dedicated socialist, and he was a member of the Society for Cultural Relations with the USSR (now the Society for Co-operation in Russian and Soviet Studies, SCRSS). It was in this capacity that in March 1940 he approached firstly Clifford Curzon, who declined, and then Moura Lympany, who agreed, to be the soloist at the UK premiere of Aram Khachaturian's Piano Concerto in D-flat. The work was still in manuscript, and there was only one month in which to learn it. The concert was at the Queen's Hall on 13 April 1940, and the orchestra was conducted by Clark's friend and committed communist Alan Bush.
  In 1945–46 he presented three concerts at the Wigmore Hall in London, of music by British and European composers. He organised the 1946 London ISCM Festival, a year before being elected the organisation's third President. He been active with the ISCM since its inception in 1922, as Chairman of the British Chapter. He was also associated with the London Contemporary Music Centre 1947–52 (where the Australian composer Don Banks was his secretary), and music adviser to the Institute for Contemporary Arts from its inception in 1948. Humphrey Searle became the ISCM's General Secretary with Clark's support.
  In 1946 Clark attended the first performance of Denis ApIvor's Lorca songs at a concert for the Society for the Promotion of New Music. He was impressed, and included these songs in a London Contemporary Music concert at the Wigmore Hall in 1947. Later that same year, Clark produced ApIvor's Violin Sonata, Op. 9 played by Antonio Brosa and Kyla Greenbaum. It was through Clark that ApIvor became interested in serialism.
  His administrative skills never improved. In 1947, Peggy Glanville-Hicks, President of the United States branch of the ISCM, was forced to write sharply to him to protest about unanswered correspondence in which the Americans had asked that the ISCM Festival scheduled for June 1948 in Amsterdam be held as late as possible in the month, in order to allow them the chance to attend, given their existing university teaching commitments. In the event, the US branch withdrew from the festival, but Glanville-Hicks attended in her personal capacity.
  In 1948, for the BBC's Third Programme, Clark presented "Turning Points in Twentieth-Century Music", a series of eight programmes of his own creation, which looked at the composers Schoenberg, Stravinsky and Bartók.
  He gave the Commemoration Speech before the London Opera Guild's 'Arnold Schoenberg Memorial Concert' on 16 December 1951.
  In 1953 Sir William Walton used his contacts to secure a Civil List pension for Clark.
  In 1955, Benjamin Frankel succeeded Clark as Chairman of the ISCM. That year issues arose about certain expenses Clark had claimed while he was Chairman. Clark alleged that Frankel had falsely accused him of fraud. Frankel denied he had ever made any such claim, but nevertheless said that such a claim, had he made it, would have been true. This amounted to slander as far as Clark was concerned, and he sued Frankel in the High Court. As part of the arguments, various allegations of communist sub-plots were given an airing. While Frankel's alleged slander itself was unproven, the jury exonerated Clark of any wrongdoing and he felt this meant his integrity was intact. Elisabeth Lutyens ever after referred to Frankel as "composer and ex-colleague".
  In 1960 and 1961 he used his influence to have Denis ApIvor's opera Yerma broadcast by the BBC after the Sadler's Wells Theatre refused to mount the production (even though it had been commissioned by the Sadler's Wells Trust). It was conducted by Sir Eugene Goossens.
  Edward Clark died suddenly of a coronary thrombosis in London on 30 April 1962, aged 73. Stravinsky wept on hearing of Clark's death.
caption: Poster for Edward Clark concert, Moscow
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