Rebecca Clarke's Viola Sonata was published as ''for viola or cello'' and was played in her presence and to her approval by her friend, the cellist May Mukle; her Epilogue is an original work for cello, written for Guilhermina Suggia. Amy Beach's Sonata and her Three Compositions were written for violin; she transcribed the latter for cello herself, but this version of the Sonata was made by the soloist on this recording.
Beach's Sonata might fit the viola rather better, I think: it is so intensely Brahmsian, and Brahms (as Benjamin Britten remarked) ''had such a marvellous craze for the viola''. At this pitch Beach's luscious harmonies and her adroit counterpoint can sound a touch murky, the 2/4 Scherzo a bit clumpy. But Pamela Frame is a persuasive advocate of the Sonata's many amply romantic themes and its ingenious development of them into contrasting variants: the way that the Scherzo's trio is derived from a memory of the first movement and from the Scherzo itself is really very clever, and there are many other such pleasing discoveries to be made. The elegiac slow movement is the most Brahmsian of all and has considerable eloquence. Hearing the headlong theme of the finale you instinctively suspect that it will give birth to a fugue, and again Beach does not disappoint. Cellists (and violists?) will find it a welcome addition to their repertoire. The Op. 40 pieces are closer to the salon, but the expressive melody of ''La Captive'' is finely sustained, and the lift to its second strain is quite characteristic of this accomplished composer.
Even so, I think Clarke is the finer, with a more personal voice. In its viola version her Sonata is already well-known; the cello emphasizes the boldness of its dramatic opening gesture and the scale of the finale. The Epilogue is later, darker, more elegiac, intensifying in the middle to a lyricism that recalls the sonata. Frame takes subtle and affectionate care of detailed phrasing and sings a beautiful line, but her tone (at least as recorded here, both instruments sounding restricted by a cramped acoustic) is not huge, and she seems at her best in more meditative, tranquil music: rather small-scale readings, in short, but attractive ones.'