John Powell is an American composer whose detestable, racially motivated political views late in life have overshadowed his remarkable and very real contribution to music, most of that achieved early in life. Although it would be difficult to interest very many American artists to take up the cause of Powell, English pianist
Nicholas Ross, a professor at Sweet Briar College in Virginia, has decided to brave the potentially injurious political headwinds and press forward with this fine recital, Centaur Records' John Powell: Early Piano Works. All three of the pieces here were written in 1906-1907 when Powell was in Europe studying piano with renowned pedagogue Theodor Leschetizky and, in a pianistic sense, have a distinct Lisztian flavor in accord with the conventions of European piano writing common to the early 1900s. Powell's unique wrinkle, however, is his southern-ness and direct, texturally clear exposition of melodic ideas that incorporate a wide range of American folk influences drawing from his native Virginia. This is up to, and including, the input of African-American melodic ideas that he later disdained and attempted to suppress in his own earlier work.
Ironically, the degree to which Powell incorporated African-American themes comprises one of the very elements of his music that makes it so attractive to listen to in retrospect. His suite In the South, Op. 16 -- not to be confused with
Edward Elgar's orchestral suite of the same name -- re-creates stirring ragtime figures in its "Pioneer Dance" and evokes a bluesy turn of phrase in its "Negro Elegy" in a manner that sounds like it could have been composed 20 years later. By comparison, "Hummingbirds," which opens the set, is the kind of romantic genre piece that could have been composed by any European virtuoso. While it is good, it is not as striking as the other movements. The suite At the Fair: Sketches of American Fun opens with a bold, unconventional piece entitled "Hoochie Coochie Dance" inspired by Little Egypt's famous turn at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair and its distinctive musical theme. The same impetus inspired
Charles Ives to compose the string quartet movement "Holding Your Own" just four years earlier, and it is fascinating to compare the two. "Clowns," with its torturous twists on ragtime, nearly anticipates
Shostakovich's Polka from L'age d'or in its superimposition of highly fractious melody to a steady dance rhythm.
Naturally, if no one were to play these pieces we would never know that Powell was capable of writing such daring and original music, and if it had been up to him, we wouldn't -- these were the things that, later in life, he disowned. One work he did not disown also included here is the Sonate noble, Op. 21 -- it is highly ambitious, reminiscent of Grieg, and could stand with any of the large-scale piano works written by his American contemporaries at the time save
Ives, Griffes, and MacDowell.
Nicholas Ross' playing is dedicated, clean, and forthright, no small feat as some of the music in In the South is written at a treacherously difficult level, the reason the published edition of the work didn't fare so well at first light. This is one of the best-engineered piano recordings Centaur Records has produced, and it was recorded on a Steinway "D" in Louisiana State University's recital hall. For those willing to try it out, John Powell: Early Piano Works should prove both surprising and highly enjoyable, and it reveals quite a bit about Powell that, given the opportunity, he might not have allowed us to know.