Violinist Maud Powell (1867-1920) achieved considerable popularity during her all-too-brief career (she died of a heart attack at 52 while on tour), which was no small feat for an American woman at the 20th century’s outset. Among her U.S. premieres were the Dvorák, Tchaikovsky, and Sibelius concertos. Considering that Powell was only two years younger than Sibelius, her advocacy is analogous to Gidon Kremer championing John Adams today. Powell died five years before electrical recording became the industry standard, yet left about three and a half hours’ worth of acoustic discs, chiefly consisting of encore-type fare that typified what record companies deemed salable. In the late 1980s the Maud Powell Society issued her complete recorded legacy on three CDs, in excellent Ward Marston transfers. Marston is at the controls again for Naxos’ Maud Powell edition, effecting less surface noise than before but additional presence in the violin tone.
In the main, Powell impresses for her straightforward, unaffected musicianship and a solid technique that makes liberal use of finger slides–a mannerism that may sound frilly and old-fashioned to modern ears. On the other hand, her recording of the Bourée from Bach’s B minor Solo Partita relates to recent period performance philsophies by way of her plain-spoken tone and near avoidance of vibrato. This type of sonority also suits Percy Grainger’s bumptious “Molly On The Shore”, which Powell plays complete as opposed to Fritz Kreisler’s abridged (albeit suppler) rendition. But she doesn’t bring much passion, scintillation, or emotional build to Bruch’s Kol Nidre and Sarasate’s Zigeunerweisen (both abbreviated). And Kreisler’s more poetic phrasing and superior intonation scores over Powell’s rather ordinary Massenet “Meditation” from Thaïs. Perhaps Schubert’s “The Bee” offers the most unmitigated listening pleasure, and Emmett’s faded but charming Caprice on “Dixie” must have been a hit with audiences. Connoisseurs of historic violin material should be pleased to know of this release, and will certainly look forward to Volumes 2 and 3.
