LEGACY OF A FRIENDSHIP

Violin virtuoso Maud Powell was the first American performer to recognise and champion the genius of Sibelius’s epic Violin Concerto in D minor, in spite of the initial scepticism of some US critics. Karen A. Shaffer reveals the mutual respect and friendship that made it possible

Maud Powell at the piano in her studio in Gramercy Park, New York, with Sibelius’s autographed photo on the wall behind her

CREDIT

While chatting with Eugene and Lilien Weintraub on a cold, rainy day in the autumn of 1936, Jean Sibelius (1865-1957) recalled the time he met American violinist Maud Powell in Norfolk, Connecticut, in 1914. The Finnish composer and his wife Aino received these American visitors at their home in Järvenpäa with kindness, enjoying an afternoon of genial conversation. Contrary to his stern image, Sibelius laughed robustly and smiled easily. Remaining modest, he had kind words for the people of whom they spoke.

Weintraub observed (Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 1936): ‘When the composer spoke about America and his American friends he did so with pleasure, for he was highly grateful for their appreciative reception to his music. As I sat, sipping my coffee, my eyes were riveted on a pamphlet stuck between two books on the shelf. My host […] walked over to the bookcase and allowed me to see it. I laughed. “What in the world are you doing with an American railroad pamphlet advertising the wonders of our Grand Canyon?” He answered by turning to a page [inscribed], “To my friend, Jan Sibelius, 1914.” It was signed, Maud Powell. I then understood why this hoary pamphlet occupied so important a niche in the composer’s library.’

In the spring of 1906, the 38-year-old Powell (1867–1920) had begun studying Sibelius’s Violin Concerto in D minor. Since it had been completed so recently, in 1904, and then revised by the composer in 1905, she had never heard it played, nor had anyone else in America. She first ‘heard’ it through her mind’s ear, reading a blotted, almost illegible manuscript that she ‘unearthed accidentally, among a pile of other things’ by her piano in her Gramercy Park studio. She recalled being drawn to the work the minute she saw the first theme, and that her ‘interest increased by leaps and bounds’ as she read on. Picturing its effects with orchestra, she was ‘thrilled by the concerto, thrilled by its themes’ (Musical America, 1911).

Powell worked on the concerto for more than six months, always finding something in it she had never dreamt of before. As the niece of John Wesley Powell, the famous explorer of the Grand Canyon, Maud had a pioneering spirit that was aroused by what she described as ‘a gigantic, rugged thing, an epic really […] Oh, it is wonderful. It is on new lines and has a new technique’ (1913 interview, Oregon Daily Journal).

Powell recognised the concerto as an ‘impossibly difficult’ work which would require more than one hearing to be appreciated. Yet she immediately made arrangements to present it to American audiences. The revised concerto had been premiered on 19 October 1905, by Karel Halíř at the Berlin Singakademie with Richard Strauss conducting, and in a letter dated 17 June 1906, Powell eagerly informed Sibelius that she would give its American premiere with Vasily Safonov conducting the New York Philharmonic on 30 November and 1 December 1906. Sibelius’s music was largely unknown in the US at that time, and New York audiences would not get to hear any of his symphonies until 1913.

To prepare the public, Powell asked Sibelius for an autographed photograph and anything he would like to say about the concerto and its conception. She wrote that the ‘doyen of American critics’ Henry Krehbiel would give an analysis in the New-York Tribune in advance of the concert.

Eero Järnefelt’s 1890s portrait of Jean Sibelius playing the violin

POWELL PHOTO COURTESY OF THE MAUD POWELL SOCIETY

Her enthusiasm bubbled over: ‘I cannot tell you how interested I am in the Concerto. I consider it quite the best since the

‘A GIGANTIC, RUGGED THING, AN EPIC REALLY… OH, IT IS WONDERFUL’

Sibelius’s autographed photo to Maud Powell

G minor of Bruch. […] Not only is the solo part so wonderfully written for the instrument but the orchestration is superb. I hope to have a really sensational success with the Sibelius and am proud to be the first to play it in this country.’

Recognising the risk that Powell was taking, Sibelius responded: ‘I am so very pleased to hear that you take interest in my violin concerto and will produce it in America. If I am going to have a good reception in New York, I am convinced it is to you I will owe the great part of the success.’ He inscribed his photograph, ‘To the Violin Queen, Miss Maud Powell, with gratitude – Jean Sibelius.’ Powell had it framed for display in the window of G. Schirmer, New York’s largest music shop. After the performances, in a letter dated 14 December, she wrote that she had made as much ‘réclame as possible’, even playing the concerto in private, before critics, musicians and others, in order ‘to create interest and understanding’.

The concerts took place at New York’s Carnegie Hall. Bewildered New York critics commended Powell’s artistry and courage in presenting the concerto but were uncertain of its lasting value. While recognising its originality, Krehbiel despaired that ‘there are few opportunities for the violin to speak in tones of beauty, while the accompaniment is for the greater part either a mutter or a growl. Solo instrument and orchestra do not love each other in this new work’ (New‐York Tribune). Richard Aldrich (New York Times) wrote that Powell was ‘working against odds too great’ due to the work’s ‘paucity of ideas, its great length and almost unrelieved sombreness of mood’. William J. Henderson (New York Sun) excoriated it: ‘This concerto is of the Finns, finny. It is of the North, rugged. It is of the Russ, rude. It is of the fiddle, technical. It is almost everything except beautiful […] It is bitter as gall and savage as wilderness.’ He acknowledged that Powell played it superbly, ‘But why did she put all that magnificent art into this sour and crabbed concerto?’

Nevertheless, the audience let loose with a great ovation, and Saint-Saëns, who had listened ‘most attentively’, applauded heartily. Safonov shook Powell by the hand, and on 2 December wrote in a note to her, ‘To conquer these almost insurmountable difficulties of technic and interpretation requires really an unusually artistic force.’

THE COMPOSER INSCRIBED HIS PHOTOGRAPH, ‘TO THE VIOLIN QUEEN, MISS MAUD POWELL, WITH GRATITUDE – JEAN SIBELIUS’

Maud Powell in 1919

ALL PHOTOS AND IMAGES COURTESY OF THE MAUD POWELL SOCIETY

Powell sent the reviews to Sibelius, remarking in her 14 December letter: ‘Alas, the work was not received as well as I could have wished. However, I have not lost courage and shall play it again with the splendid orchestra in Chicago, also in Cincinnati and I hope with the Boston Symphony under Dr Muck.’ Still full of enthusiasm, Powell reassured him: ‘The concerto went really very well and we had a most representative and distinguished audience. And I was proud to be “making history”.’

With daring spirit, she went on to Chicago, Cincinnati and Boston. For the Chicago performances on 25 and 26 January 1907 she collaborated with Frederick Stock, successor to Theodore Thomas as conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. In sharp contrast to New York critics, O.H. Hall (Chicago Daily Journal) marvelled:

The striking, original composition, racked by the vigour of the northland, has feverish moods fierce with the fire of the gypsy Czardas, weird, witching and involved, and is intensely violinistic. Miss Powell was at all times equal to the titanic task imposed, for the tournies of technic, remarkable as they were had an artistic alpha and omega in the soothing, savage and brilliant melodies that flow from her facile fingers, interpreting every phase of the composer’s strange and variegated imagery in music.

The orchestra members ‘followed with wonder at her amazing performance. She returned and repeated the last movement with a power and brilliancy that even surpassed her previous performance.’ The Musical Courier wired back to New York: ‘Great success for Maud Powell… Veritable ovation.’ On 1 February, Powell wrote to Sibelius:

I am happy to inform you of the triumph of the Concerto in Chicago. The conductor, Fred Stock, and the orchestra were all enthusiastic about it and played it wonderfully. Mr Stock belongs to our generation and worked in complete sympathy with the composition and with my interpretation. Wish you could have heard the performance. […] I am so overjoyed at the success – we really are to congratulate each other.

Letter to Maud Powell from conductor Frederick Stock

‘ALAS, THE WORK WAS NOT RECEIVED AS WELL AS I COULD HAVE WISHED. HOWEVER, I HAVE NOT LOST COURAGE AND SHALL PLAY IT AGAIN’

Her performances on 5 and 9 February 1907 with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra under the direction of her long-time collaborator Frank Van der Stucken ‘carried the audience away with her’, (Cincinnati Enquirer), and when Powell introduced the Sibelius to Boston with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Karl Muck on 19 and 20 April, music critics contemplated the ability of the concerto form to be expressive in a modern sense. Henry Taylor Parker hailed it as ‘music that has made a concerto eloquent with emotions and poignant of mood as are few concertos, old or new’ (Boston Evening Transcript). Parker’s violinist friends noted that the concerto raised ‘new and strange difficulties’. Some believed that Sibelius had ‘enlarged the technical possibilities of the violin’ while others thought he had ‘complicated and distorted them’. Yet Parker noted that Powell had made the concerto her own and ‘played it as though she were its voice’. Still, a critic for the Boston Journal groused that Powell had ‘handicapped herself with something that could not possibly make any strong popular appeal’!

Undaunted, Powell continued to perform the concerto at every opportunity; if not with orchestra then with piano in recital. ‘I felt that I could not be mistaken – the message was there, and I would not give it up until I had made others feel what I felt when I played it,’ she explained in a 1907 interview (Tacoma Daily Ledger). When she performed the work with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the reaction of the players reinforced her faith in the revolutionary composition. In the same interview, she said:

Chicago SO conductor Frederick Stock

Maud Powell (centre) with Theodore Spiering and his wife Frida Mueller Spiering outside Carnegie Hall in March 1911

The orchestra tried it, and it seemed, in a way, to appeal to them. We tried it a second time and every player in the orchestra was intensely interested. We played it again and again and I have never seen anything like the hold it secured on us. When I gave it every man in the orchestra felt that he himself was imparting the wonderful message of the piece as much as if he had stood upon the concert stage […] The audience who heard it were held by the same magnetism which had consumed myself and the orchestra. The critics were intensely enthusiastic. So there you are – New York would have none of it and yet the Western critics have felt the message which I am sure Sibelius wished to convey. Sibelius was a Finn – his music told of the great ice mountains with the sun shining and the great distances – silent, boundless distances.

She had as much confidence in the future of the Sibelius as she did in that of the Tchaikovsky Concerto, whose US premiere was also given by her, in New York in January 1889.

Although it was Mahler who engaged Powell for a return to New York with the Sibelius on 14 and 17 March 1911, he became unwell and was unable to conduct.

Theodore Spiering, chosen by Mahler for the post of concertmaster in 1909, stepped in, which was fortunate since he himself had prepared the concerto with Sibelius and played it in Berlin. Powell performed to packed houses, and a critic in the Musical Courier reported, ‘Powell celebrated one of the most deserved triumphs she ever has achieved in New York.’

Yet Krehbiel remained unconvinced of the concerto’s value:

‘Whether or not the composition really deserves as much artistic devotion as its difficulties exact is a question which seemed as difficult to answer yesterday as it did four and a half years ago.’

A year later, on 8 and 9 March 1912, Powell took the concerto back to Boston at the request of ‘critics and public, both’ – in place of the Beethoven Concerto. Max Fiedler conducted. It had been five years since she last performed the concerto there. Critic Olin Downes anointed it as ‘one of the few great violin concertos in existence’, adding that Powell’s performance was ‘masterly from every point of view’ (Boston Post). That April, the violinist responded in an interview to those who called it a ‘show piece’: ‘It is far too dramatic and poetic for that – a great, grey, grim Saga of the North – full of pathos and yearning.’ She reflected that this ‘tremendous’ piece ‘is not yet properly appreciated either by the critics or the public’. (The Lyre of Alpha Chi Omega). Sibelius, she explained in a later (1914) interview for the Musical Courier, ‘always possesses that complete balance, that perfect architectural outline, which renders his music so lucid’. She loved the concerto for ‘its strong, rugged themes, its wonderfully direct appeal, its modernism and yet withal its complete simplicity of thought and structure’. She played it every year with ‘unflagging interest’ admitting, ‘It grows on one.’

Powell photographed c.1908

POWELL LOVED THE CONCERTO FOR ‘ITS STRONG RUGGED THEMES, ITS DIRECT APPEAL, ITS MODERNISM, AND YET ITS SIMPLICITY’

Norfolk Music Shed, where Sibelius conducted a programme of his works in 1914

ALL PHOTOS AND IMAGES COURTESY OF THE MAUD POWELL SOCIETY

Powell’s last opportunity to perform the Sibelius with orchestra arose from the composer’s only visit to the US, in 1914. He was the honoured guest composer at the prestigious Litchfield County Choral Union festival in Norfolk, Connecticut, whose founders, Carl Stoeckel and Ellen Battell Stoeckel, had commissioned him to write a new work (The Oceanides).

After two days of rehearsals at Carnegie Hall, Sibelius exclaimed, ‘What an orchestra! A hundred splendid musicians selected from the finest performers in the orchestras of Boston and New York: the best orchestra I have ever conducted.’ (Karl Ekman, Jean Sibelius, His Life and Personality, 1938). In Norfolk, Sibelius enjoyed the Stoeckel estate, listened to various rehearsals and conversed and dined with distinguished guests including Powell and her husband Godfrey Turner. Dress rehearsals for The Oceanides were held in the impressive Music Shed, constructed of cedar and California redwood, on the evening of 2 June and the following morning. With a full orchestra already in place, Sibelius and Powell seized the moment to perform his concerto at a rehearsal. In a draft memoir, Powell related:

Few laymen can realise the exaltation which comes to an artist while playing a colossal work like the Sibelius Concerto with a great symphony orchestra and under the inspiring leadership of the composer himself. I look back at this performance the same as to the performance of the Beethoven Concerto, under Mahler, as supreme moments in the life of any artist.

Carl Stoeckel recalled: ‘After the rehearsal, at my request [Sibelius] came on the porch of the Music Shed and was photographed with Madame Powell.’ The bond between composer and violinist was forever sealed that day.

On 4 June, Sibelius conducted a programme of his own works: Pohjola’s Daughter, the King Christian II suite, The Swan of Tuonela, Finlandia, Valse triste and The Oceanides. The concert concluded with the Finnish national anthem sung in English by the huge choir with orchestra, coupled with ‘America Forever’, an unofficial American national anthem. According to Ekman, Sibelius recalled:

Powell photographed c.1908

Cover of Musical America from 1915, featuring Maud Powell

‘FEW LAYMEN CAN REALISE THE EXALTATION WHICH COMES TO AN ARTIST WHILE PLAYING A COLOSSAL WORK LIKE THE SIBELIUS CONCERTO UNDER THE INSPIRING LEADERSHIP OF THE COMPOSER HIMSELF’

There was such a wonderful festive atmosphere over it all from the moment I came in, when the audience rose and the orchestra joined in with a thundering “fanfare”. I noticed with emotion that the conductor’s desk was decorated with the Finnish and American colours. The audience consisted of close on two thousand guests by invitation […] The most inspiring setting for the appearance of an artist.

Before Sibelius sailed home, Powell and her husband sent him a postcard: ‘Bon voyage! Come back to us soon.’ After their ‘delightful meeting’, Powell made a transcription for violin and piano of the Musette from Sibelius’s King Christian II suite and adapted Friedrich Hermann’s transcription of Valse triste. She recorded them for the Victor Company with pianist George Falkenstein on 24 June 1914 and included them on her 1914–15 season recital programmes.

In 1918, Powell introduced the first movement of the Sibelius violin concerto to American audiences further afield while on tour with pianist Arthur Loesser in San Diego, Los Angeles, El Paso, Dallas, Portland and Sioux City. On her return, she gave her last performance of the concerto

(again, only the first movement) in her final Carnegie Hall recital appearance on 7 April 1918. One critic (in the Musical Leader) hailed it as ‘one of the greatest achievements ever attempted on a recital programme’, reporting that Leopold Auer was in the audience, applauding ‘most heartily’ from a first-tier box.

So the work was finally acknowledged as a masterpiece in the city in which Powell had given its American premiere in 1906, but she never got to record it owing to limited technology during her lifetime. Jascha Heifetz made the first published recording in 1935 (the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Thomas Beecham), and Sibelius received a copy the day the Weintraubs visited in 1936. When Eugene Weintraub mentioned the concerto’s popularity in America, recalling early performances by Powell and Efrem Zimbalist, Sibelius suddenly left the room, ‘without a word’. He returned holding Heifetz’s recording, Weintraub reported, ‘with a happy smile on his face’, and ‘his eyes sparkling’.

The work remains the most recorded 20th-century violin concerto, happily justifying Sibelius’s faith in Powell’s advocacy of the masterpiece that had won her heart.