A. Kori Hill
Maud Powell (1867–1920) learned violin fast. Like, prodigy fast! She started playing at seven in her hometown of Peru, Illinois. By thirteen, she was in Leipzig, Germany, studying violin with Henry Schradieck (yes, that Schradieck!) and Friedrich Hermann. A year later, she was at the Paris Conservatoire, where she studied with Charles Dancla (yep, that Dancla!) for six months. And then a year after that, Joseph Joachim – that guy who was friends with Brahms(!) – asked her if she wanted to finish her studies with him at the Berlin Hochschule. Powell said yes, and in 1885, Joachim conducted her in her debut, performing Beethoven’s D major and Bruch’s G minor violin concertos.
Maud is a soloist who should be better known because she gave the American premieres of several concertos that we now take for granted (e.g. Tchaikovsky and Dvořák); and she was really big on programming living (or recently living) composers. She commissioned Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s violin concerto, routinely performed the Brahms, Sibelius and Tchaik violin concertos, and also performed chamber music by Cécile Chaminade, Anton Arensky, Bedřich Smetana, and more.
She was also the first instrumentalist to record for the Victor Talking Machine, starting in 1904. This was in the early stages of recording technology; folks were getting nervous because with the ability to listen to the same performance over and over, you’d also hear mistakes! Mistakes that would disappear in the concert hall would be preserved; this resulted in people being very picky about what mistakes were “ok” and which were no longer permitted. The result was a rise in technical accuracy over the following decades, and a shift in the width of vibrato to avoid swinging in and out of tune.
Maud’s recordings from 1904 to 1917 are still available for listening on the Naxos album Maud Powell: The Complete Recordings Vols. 1-4. Vol. 3 includes her arrangement of Coleridge’s Deep River. Take a listen – notice her use of vibrato and her addition of virtuosic chords. Revisit the article where I mention Harry T. Burleigh’s “Deep River.” What are the differences in tempo and style between his version and Maud’s?
Maud recorded a lot of her own arrangements and transcriptions. An important one is her transcription of Four American Folk Songs, on Vol. 1. Each song comes from minstrelsy or the sentimental song tradition. “My Old Kentucky Home,” and “Old Black Joe” by Stephen C. Foster romanticizes slavery; “Shine On” by Luke Schoolcraft and “Kingdom Comin’” by Henry Clay Work were both written for the minstrel stage.
You might be scratching your head. Why would Maud work so closely with Coleridge and yet transcribe and perform a medley of American songs that today we’d consider racist? That even some Black folks of her time considered to be offensive? Keep scratching your head and listen to Maud’s performance; consider whose perspective is being presented and how Maud’s interpretation enhances or obscures these contradictions.
