For years I’ve had on my shelf what I thought was a notable obscurity. John Powell’s Sonata Teutonica, procured via special order through the old Patelson’s music store, fills 64 pages of an Oxford University Press publication edited by Roy Hamlin Johnson. I gave the piece and its composer some consideration on account it being praised by Kaikhosru Sorabji, and because Powell and Sorabji evidently had a somewhat substantive correspondence. I never saw any of those letters, and my inquiry to the Sorabji Archives as to whether either side of the correspondence was available for review returned a negative response.
Until now that was about all I could tell you about the Sonata Teutonica and its composer. My impression was that the piece had enjoyed something of a renaissance, at least in the piano community’s knowledge of its existence, but that it remained a marginal work of limited influence. I always thought it was kind of soft, and I suspected Sorabji’s praise for the work might simply have been in response to its performance time of over an hour. Sorabji attended the premiere performance of the piece by pianist Benno Moisiewitch, and his positive comments are what cemented this Teutonica’s place in my mind as a notable and worthy work.
New to the discussion since I last looked into it is the unfortunate reality that Powell was an unabashed white supremacist, and that it was no secret to the conductors and performers he worked with. No mention of this is to be found in any of the score’s editorial notes, and it seems that it was only in the last 10-12 years that the University of Virginia, where Powell was on the faculty, had no idea that the person after whom a campus building was named was unquestionably associated with the eugenics movement and white separatism.
Classical music is hardly immune from its composers and performers aligning with controversial political movements. Wagner, of course, is probably the most famous composer known for his proto-Nazi views. The lesser-known Walter Rummel comes to mind as another who, at one time, aligned himself with Nazi sentiments. But such a brazen example of someone whose real reputation has only recently been clarified is kind of surprising. It does nothing to change my opinion of the music itself. I had always questioned Sorabji’s praise for it but then his choices for singling out obscurities could be quixotic.
Here’s an excerpt from David Z. Kushner’s John Powell: His Racial and Cultural Ideologies to illustrate the charm offensive used by white supremacists
If the present ratio were to remain permanent, the inevitable product of the melting pot would
be approximately an octoroon. It should not be necessary to stress the significance of this
point. We know that under Mendelian law the African strain is hereditarily predominant. In
other words, one drop of negro (sic) blood makes the negro (sic). We also know that no higher
race has ever been able to preserve its culture, to prevent decay and eventual degeneracy when
tainted, even slightly, with negro (sic) blood. Sixty centuries of history establish this rule.
Since the first page of recorded fact, history can show no exception. Were the American
people to become an octoroon race, it would mean their sinking to the level of Haiti and Santo
Domingo.
Well, now you know, too. I think I’ll put my copy of Sonata Teutonica back on the shelf, and keep it there.
Sonata Teutonica
