Florida State University Libraries Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School 2012 "The Solution Lies with the American Women": Maud Powell as an Advocate for Violinists, Women, and American Music Catherine C. Williams Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact [email protected] THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF MUSIC “THE SOLUTION LIES WITH THE AMERICAN WOMEN”: MAUD POWELL AS AN ADVOCATE FOR VIOLINISTS, WOMEN, AND AMERICAN MUSIC By CATHERINE C. WILLIAMS A Thesis submitted to the College of Music in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Music Degree Awarded: Summer Semester, 2012 Catherine C. Williams defended this thesis on May 9th, 2012. The members of the supervisory committee were: Denise Von Glahn Professor Directing Thesis Michael Broyles Committee Member Douglass Seaton Committee Member The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members, and certifies that the thesis has been approved in accordance with university requirements. ii For Maud iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank my parents and my brother, Mary Ann, Geoff, and Grant, for their unceasing support and endless love. My entire family deserves recognition, for giving encouragement, assistance, and comic relief when I needed it most. I am in great debt to Tristan, who provided comfort, strength, physics references, and a bottomless coffee mug. I would be remiss to exclude my colleagues in the musicology program here at The Florida State University. The environment we have created is incomparable. To Matt DelCiampo, Lindsey Macchiarella, and Heather Paudler: thank you for your reassurance, understanding, and great friendship. Special thanks to Megan MacDonald, my partner-in-crime, for all of the bizarre study hours, conversations, and general flailing. We took this journey together. My outstanding advisor, Denise Von Glahn, has contributed time, effort, and invaluable discussion throughout this thesis process. I am grateful for her confidence and sincere interest in my work. I would also like to recognize my committee, Douglass Seaton and Michael Broyles, for their enthusiastic reviews and contributions to this thesis. I am truly honored to have the opportunity to work with such esteemed scholars. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Musical Examples ……………………………………………………………………… vi Abstract ………………………………………………………………………………………… vii 1. FRAMEWORK OF STUDY ……………………………………………………………… 1 2. A CONCISE BIOGRAPHY OF MAUD POWELL ………………………………………… 5 3. MAUD POWELL, PERFORMANCE, AND AMERICAN MUSIC ………………………. 16 4. AMY BEACH’S ROMANCE FOR VIOLIN AND PIANO, OP. 23, AND MARION BAUER’S UP THE OCKLAWAHA: TONE PICTURE FOR VIOLIN, OP. 6 …………………………………………………………………………………… 29 5. SUPPORTING GREAT AMERICAN WORKS ……………………………………………. 39 APPENDIX ……………………………………………………………………………………. 42 BIBLIOGRAPHY …………………………………………………………………………… 49 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH …………………………………………………………………. 56 v LIST OF MUSICAL EXAMPLES Example 1: Excerpt from Amy Beach, Romance for Violin and Piano, Op. 23. Boston: Arthur P. Schmidt, 1893, mm. 5-12 ……………………………………………………………………… 32 Example 2: Excerpt from Marion Bauer, Up the Ocklawaha: Tone Picture for Violin, Op. 6. Boston: Arthur P. Schmidt, 1913, mm. 1-4 …………………………………………………… 37 Example 3: Excerpt from Marion Bauer, Up the Ocklawaha: Tone Picture for Violin, Op. 6. Boston: Arthur P. Schmidt, 1913, mm. 3-10 ………………………………………………… 37 vi ABSTRACT Maud Powell was recognized as among the best violinists at home and abroad during her lifetime. She believed that women should play the violin and that American women could be professional musicians – performers, educators, and composers. Powell’s status as a great artist allowed her the freedom to program and promote music that was not established in the canon of “great works.” Her choices in performance impacted important violin repertoire and gave exposure to composers whose works might otherwise go unheard. Powell brought awareness to American music by performing it and labeling it on her programs as “American.” As an advocate of American music she was adamant that this music needed to be of the same caliber as European “great works.” She did not perform a piece simply because it was American, although she was sure to bring attention to a great work of American music. She performed world premieres of American works, many of which were dedicated to her, as American composers realized the impact that Maud Powell could have. Her influence was justified by her work as a professional performer and the success of her career. Powell was also interested in promoting works by American women. Both Amy Beach’s Romance for Violin and Piano, Op. 23, and Marion Bauer’s Up the Ocklawaha: Tone Picture for Violin, Op. 6 were dedicated to Powell. Though she was outspoken in written remarks regarding the capability of American women as composers, Powell did not perform these pieces consistently throughout her career. Among her many achievements, Powell is important to our nation’s music history because she was the first American-born professional violinist, she was the first instrumentalist to record for the Red Seal Label of Victor Records, she attempted to dissolve gender and racial barriers, and she premiered and recorded many contemporary American works at a time when these works had few advocates of her caliber. The little scholarship on her work as a great artist does not reflect her presence as a celebrated figure in American music during her lifetime. Powell’s place in history and the importance of her career resonates beyond herself or individual women performers or composers. It highlights the significance of great performers in music history and their influence on how music history is written. vii CHAPTER 1 FRAMEWORK OF STUDY This thesis discusses the ways the American violinist Maud Powell (1867-1920) promoted music by American composers. It considers two pieces dedicated to and performed by Powell: Amy Beach’s Romance for Violin and Piano, Op. 23, and Marion Bauer’s Up the Ocklawaha: Tone Picture for Violin, Op. 6. In order to determine Powell’s specific motivations for advocating certain works by American composers, I consider critical reception and Powell’s personal observations as recorded in letters, articles, and program notes. Primary sources for this thesis are housed in the Archive of the Maud Powell Society, located in Brevard, North Carolina, and in the New York Public Library. The Archive contains letters, scrapbooks (in hard copy format, printed from microfilm copies found in the New York Public Library), recordings and transcriptions, and photographs. In preparation for this thesis I traveled to Brevard, conducted research in the Maud Powell Society Archive, and established a working relationship with the archivist and Powell biographer Karen Shaffer. The Maud Powell Society has a useful website, http://www.maudpowell.org, with easy navigation that is helpful when looking for basic biographical information, such as a personal chronology or birth and death dates. The website is run and regularly updated by Karen Shaffer. Due to the limited bibliography of secondary writings pertaining to Powell, archival research has been crucial to my project. The information that resides in the Maud Powell Society Archive is a result of the research conducted for the only Maud Powell biography in existence, Maud Powell: Pioneer American Violinist, by Karen Shaffer and Neva Garner Greenwood. The 530-page biography, published in 1988, consists of a detailed account of Powell’s life. Greenwood did not actively begin to collect information on Powell until the 1970s. She searched the United States to locate Powell’s scattered memorabilia and managed to collect a large quantity of these materials. Her work on the Powell biography came to an end in 1980, when, due to poor health, she passed the project on to Karen Shaffer (a former violin student of her own). Shaffer finished the manuscript of the biography in 1986, three months before Greenwood’s death. Due to Greenwood’s deep investment in the Powell biography project, 1 Shaffer included her as a co-author of the biography, although it was published after Greenwood’s death. The tone of the biography tends to be more journalistic than scholarly, but this does not necessarily reflect the quality of the research.1 While the contents of Shaffer’s work have been helpful in constructing my own biographical sketch of Powell, the best sources remain Powell’s personal documents and memorabilia. Two pieces by American women dedicated to Powell are Amy Beach’s Romance for Violin and Piano, Op. 23, and Marion Eugénie Bauer’s Up the Ocklawaha: Tone Picture for Violin, Op. 6. While Beach has a relatively significant place in music history (see Adrienne Fried Block’s biography, Amy Beach, Passionate Victorian: the Life and Work of an American Composer, 1867-1944, or Jeanell Wise Brown’s Amy Beach and Her Chamber Music: Biography, Documents, Style), Bauer’s life is less well known. Sources on Bauer include Ellie M. Hisama's Gendering Musical Modernism: The Music of Ruth Crawford, Marion Bauer, and Miriam Gideon, and a chapter in Denise Von Glahn’s forthcoming book Music and the Skillful Listener: American Women Compose the Natural World. Familiarity with the lives and works of both Beach and Bauer, and their relationships with Powell, will provide important context. Material available in the Florida State University Libraries and through Internet resources is limited to that found