Carnegie Hall

On November 30, 1906, Maud Powell thrilled the Carnegie Hall audience in the US premiere of Sibelius’s Violin Concerto, performed with the New York Philharmonic and conducted by Vasily Il’ich Safonov.

The Concerto’s Beginnings

 Sibelius (1865–1957) began playing the violin when he was 14 and studied it for more than a decade. He once said his “overriding ambition was to become a great virtuoso.” That never happened, but he had a performer’s knowledge of the instrument when he began working on the concerto in September 1902. German violin virtuoso Willy Burmeister, a Berlin acquaintance of Sibelius and concert master of the Helsinki Orchestral Society in the 1890s, had prodded Sibelius to write a concerto. When Sibelius sent Burmeister a copy of the score, the violinist was elated and presumed he would perform its world premiere. 

But Sibelius, always in financial distress, wanted to premiere the work earlier than Burmeister’s schedule would accommodate. Instead, Victor Nováček, a local violin teacher, premiered the concerto with Sibelius conducting the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra on February 8, 1904. The performance was a catastrophe. Nováček, clearly out of his element, made a mess of the work and Sibelius forbade future performances.

Sibelius revised his concerto in 1905 and Burmeister implored the composer to give him the premiere. He wrote, “I shall play the concerto in Helsinki in such a way that the city will be at your feet.” But Burmeister never got the chance, and the premiere of the revised work wasn’t even in Helsinki. Instead, on October 19, 1905, Karl Halir (concertmaster of the Berliner Philharmoniker) premiered the work in Berlin with Richard Strauss conducting.

The Music

Sibelius’s 1905 revision (the version we now hear) is more concise and intense than its predecessor. After a brief, hazy theme for orchestra in the first movement, the violin enters and immediately seizes the listener’s attention with a showpiece cadenza (a virtuoso passage for soloist). For centuries the practice was to put the cadenza near the end of a movement, but Sibelius boldly inserts it at the start of the movement, using it both as showpiece and as part of the first movement’s developing structure.

What follows is equally glorious. The second-movement Adagio brims with lush melody and a stunning theme for the soloist. The finale was called by musicologist Sir Donald Francis Tovey a “polonaise for polar bears.” Its irresistible rhythm is built on timpani taps over strings and takes flight with solo passages that sizzle.

Maud Powell and the US Premiere

American audiences would have to wait another year to hear the concerto. Its star soloist was Illinois-born violinist Maud Powell. After studies in Chicago, she traveled to Europe, where she studied with Brahms’s friend, violinist Joseph Joachim, and debuted with the Berliner Philharmoniker in 1885; she made her American debut that same year. Acclaimed for the power and expressivity of her playing, she was considered by contemporary critics the equal of the legendary Fritz Kreisler and Eugène Ysaÿe.

Powell was much more than a performer. Her personal mission was to bring classical music to remote areas of the US. She was the first American woman to form and lead a string quartet and established the Maud Powell Concert Company, a touring group of six performers.  She was also an advocate for American music and introduced US audiences to concertos by Tchaikovsky, Dvořák, Saint-Saëns, Lalo, Coleridge-Taylor, Arensky, and Sibelius.

In addition to the Sibelius concerto, that November 30 program included an orchestral arrangement of a Bach trio sonata, Weber’s Overture to Oberon, and R. Schumann’s Symphony No. 2. Safonov, the conductor, was chiefly known as the piano teacher of Scriabin and Medtner, and for introducing concert works by Tchaikovsky, Glazunov, and Rachmaninoff to US audiences.

Sibelius’s concerto is a repertoire cornerstone. Its place in Carnegie Hall history has been anchored in performances by Jascha Heifetz, Ruggiero Ricci, Isaac Stern, Itzhak Perlman, Midori, Leonidas Kavakos, and many others. It’s a favorite for performers, who love its technical challenges, and for audiences, who love its melodic beauty, energy, and excitement.

Fast Facts about Sibelius’s Violin Concerto and Maud Powell

• Sibelius forbade performances of the concerto’s original version, but in 1990 the Sibelius family gave Leonidas Kavakos permission to record it.
•  Maud Powell performed Dvořák’s Violin Concerto privately for the composer in 1892.
• In 1904, Powell became the first solo instrumentalist to record for Victor Talking Machine Company’s celebrity artist series.
• Powell performed Beethoven’s Violin Concerto at Carnegie Hall with Gustav Mahler conducting the New York Philharmonic on New Year’s Eve 1909. She called it one of the “supreme moments” of her career.

Photography: Burmeister courtesy of the Library of Congress, George Grantham Bain Collection; R. Strauss courtesy of the New York Public Library Archives, Tucker Collection; Kreisler courtesy of the Library of Congress, George Grantham Bain Collection; Sibelius courtesy of the Carnegie Hall Rose Archives; inscribed photo of Sibelius to Isaac Stern courtesy of the Isaac Stern family.