Violin Genius Maud Powell
THe Life and Work of a Celebrated American Woman Concert Performer
A brief look at the life and career of Maud Powell, one of the foremost violinists of her time.
Maud Powell was born on August 22, 1867, in Peru, Illinois, the daughter of Bramwell Powell, a superintendent of schools in Aurora, Illinois, and his wife Minnie. Mrs.Powell was a pianist and composer, and was Maud's first teacher at the piano. Maud soon took violin lessons with a German teacher, and her parents attended the lessons and encouraged their daughter to be disciplined about her studies. She was encouraged by her father to memorize all of the pieces she was studying, which was a great help to her in her concert career.
Music Study
Maud Powell would start her day at 6:30 AM, when she would practise the violin for an hour before having breakfast and starting her day. She put together "Ten Practice Rules", which follow:
- Concentrate
- Play in tune
- Practice scales religiously
- Practice slowly
- Practice long bows slowly, slowly, slowly
- Memorize everything
- Keep in mind the structure of the composition
- "Vorspielen," (German), meaning to play before people
- Hear other violinists
- Love your instrument as yourself
At the time Maud Powell was studying the violin, many people felt it 'unseemly' for a girl to study the instrument. She soldiered on, in spite of the looks of disapproval by the local adults and the taunts and jeers of the neighborhood children, and the result was a fabulous career.
At the age of nine Maud began study with William Lewis, a noted violin teacher from Chicago. Every Saturday she would travel the forty-five miles alone (her parents could not afford to go with her), by train to her lesson. Lewis soon recognized her talent and would sometimes ask her to play duets with him in recital. Maud called him "a natural player, a born genius."
Stage Performances
While still a little girl Powell was received into the adult male orchestra in Aurora, soon becoming the partner of the concert master. In 1880, Maud played her first concert as soloist with the orchestra and was described as "one of the wonders of the age." Her idol at that time was the renowned French violionist Camilla Urso (1842-1902), who only five years earlier had performed on the same stage.
At the age of thirteen, Powell, accompanied by her mother and brother, arrived in Germany to begin studies with the celebrated violinist Joseph Joachim. At eighteen she was playing the Bruch Violin Concerto in g minor with conductor Theodore Thomas and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, exciting Thomas to the point where he called her "his musical grandchild."
Maud Powell was 52 and rehearsing for a concert in Uniontown, Pernnsylvania, when she suffered a heart attack and died the next day, January 8, 1920. The world lost an incomparable artist on that day and music lovers realized that they had lost " a supreme and unforgettable artist."
For further reading about violinists see Efrem Zimbalist.
Source
Maud Powell: Legendary American Violinist, by Karen A. Shaffer , MPF Publications, Arlington, VA 1994.
