Combined Carols (or: get 'em all over at once)
by Rebecca Clarke
String Quartet - Sheet Music

String quartet

SKU: IG.PDP318

Composed by Rebecca Clarke. Score and Parts. Imagine Music Publishing #PDP318. Published by Imagine Music Publishing (IG.PDP318).

9 x 12 in inches.

Combined Carols, the only known orchestral piece by Rebecca Clarke (b. Harrow, England, 1886; d.New York City, 1979), was written in 1942, under highly unusual circumstances.

A contrapuntal mashup of God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen, O Come, All Ye Faithful,'' and Silent Night, that she finished at Christmastime. Clarke said that she had knocked out Combined Carols, almost as a joke, for the amusement of her family, and indeed an autograph of the first version, for string quartet, has come down through one of her nieces, while another niece remembers it being played en famille. Oarke did not keep a copy of this version but subsequent manuscripts show that she quickly revised it, created an option for string orchestra, and started shopping it around.

Clarke suppressed Get 'em all over at once, a characteristic bit of family snark, as soon as she began promoting Combined Carols for public use. It's hard to disagree with her-the piece is not reverenlt, to be sure, but neither is it flip, and a larky subtitle is no use if it misrepresents the piece, however faintly, or limits its market. Still, Get 'em all over rzt once embodies an important element of the piece's history, besides being utterly characteristic of the composer's sense of fun, so we have provided it as an option, with the suggestion that performers use it, or not, as seems appropriate.