The Evening statesman. [volume] (Walla Walla, Wash.) 1903-1910, 1910-02-02
Maud Powell.

| Madame Maud Powell will appear at
the Keylor Grand theater, Friday
evening, February 4.
cat no recital and at few of the larger
concerts the season through had there
been such applause as rewarded Nine.
Maud Powell last evening, and at none
has it been more richly deserved. No
| American violinist comparable with
Nine. Powell in mastery of her instru-
ment as a medium of expression, in
grasp of the intellectual content of her
music, in resiliency to its qualities OF
poetry and imagination and in differen-
tiation of it's characteristic traits has
vet served her art as has she. Yet we
take her comfortably for granted; we
| leave Europe to appreciate her more
warmly than de we; and we lavish our
| interest and our praise upon the noted
violinists that cross the sea to play to
us. forgetting that when Nine. Powell
| goes to their countries, audiences there
count her as one of these. The truth
may be that since America Is still a
young country aesthetically and music
a young art among us, we must still
find something Snowy and obviously
personal in the artistry that we most
applaud Nine. Powelrs happens to be
| of a pure, enforced, almost severe in
ic ca INN n
| her listeners hear the violinist only as
| the potent and absorbing voice of the
music. Ysaye persuades by personal
weight; Kreisler allures by a romantic
charm; Thomson impresses by COM
manding mental force; youth plays in
Mischa Elman; and so forth and so on
with ather eminent violinists. In Nine.
Powell on the other hand, are the pow
err and the fascination of an almost
sic, the violin-and transporting
pleasure.
This were a late day to dwell upon
| the mechanism of Nine. Powell's play
ing-upon the equal skill and surety
of her bowling and her lingering, upon
the ease of her mastery of the Difficult
ties and the intricacies of her instru-
ment These technical resources have
become to her a medium of expression,
but a medium that she keeps at once
| in very full command and very delicate
responsiveness. Best of all, though to
gain them has been the work of years
and to maintain them is is daily work
still, she gives her playing in pieces
that are primarily means to technical
display, the air of rhapsodic improvisa-
| ton that glorifies them. She was no
lviolinist doing difficult stunts for the
admiration of a bewildered audience.
She was a musician rhapsodizing in the
kpure exhilaration of her mastery of her
| instrument as mood and fancy (albeit
they were of the composers suggest
| ing) seemed to come changefully to her
and to flow out with like rapturous ex-
| hilaration to her hearers. It were an
equally late day to write of Nine.
| Powells tone, for she has not one
tone, but many, and always the tone
that the distinguishing traits Of the
particular music bid.
ut is the distinction of Nine Powells
playing that it imparts this poetry,
I, be it Of romantic ardor and restless
ness of mood and voice, or of classic
serenity and largeness of speech and
chastened beauty of tone and feeling,
or only of playful and ingenious lyric
| fancies-all with equal understanding
and communicating power 1t is still
more the distinction of her artistry
that this responsiveness stands firm
upon confluence and sanity of mind.
upon mental grasp as we'll as nervous
response to her task. Thus indeed, her
playing is the voice of very rare and
a very sincere personality after ALL
l-ErOp, tho Poctoo Eyopipo