Maud McCarthy, prodigious Clonmel violinist, died on this day in 1967.
Michael Dervan, music critic with the Irish Times, says that Maud’s achievements ‘give her a special place in Irish musical history’. By the age of 20, she had already appeared as violin soloist with two of America’s greatest orchestras. She played the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in February 1902 when she was 19, and the Brahms Violin Concerto with the Boston Symphony Orchestra the following November. This is an achievement that has not yet been replicated by any later Irish string player.
Maud McCarthy was born in Clonmel in 1882 and her family emigrated to Australia when she was two years old. She was back in Europe by 1892 and studied with the Spanish violinist Enrique Arbos at the Royal College of Music in London.
Maud made her debut in London at the Prince’s Hall on 16 May 1894 at the age of 11 and her playing was favourably noticed in the Musical Times. The Freeman’s Journal reported in 1897, when Maud was still just 14,that she is ‘without doubt the most extraordinary child who is now before the public, and what is more, her gifts do not seem to lie merely in the direction of exceptional brilliancy. Her technique at present is not as astonishing as the higher qualities of her playing. For a girl in a short frock to play a Brahms sonata is wonderful in any case, but when one hears her play it with complete appreciation of its meaning, admirable, pleasing and expressive – in fact giving an excellent ‘reading’ in the strictest sense, criticism must be dumb. Senor Arbos says Miss McCarthy requires no teaching in the ordinary sense of the term, and her playing is not that of merely a well-taught prodigy, but bears the true stamp of individuality.”
Fast forward ten years and Maud had ‘captured the hearts of the London musical world with her remarkable gifts’ and ‘as her playing has gained maturity and strength, she has still further enhanced the opinion entertained of her by the critics. Meanwhile she has toured all over the world,playing before most of the European Courts, and to immense audiences of America and Australia, everywhere earning the warmest eulogies.’
Sadly, Maud’s career was cut short by neuritis (inflammation of the peripheral nervous system) but she remained musically active in other areas, particularly ethnomusicology (the study of music in its social and cultural contexts) and music therapy. McCarthy’s studies in India, which she first visited in 1907, covered music and musical performance and also mysticism. She mastered Karnatic classical singing, could sing in scales with 22 notes to the octave, and was praised for her achievements by Indian experts.
Maud McCarthy died in 1967, two days short of her 85th birthday, in Douglas on the Isle of Man. She is buried in Glastonbury.
Sources:
https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/music/ireland-s-forgotten-violinist-who-was-buried-at-glastonbury-1.3735842
The Nationalist, 16/06/1897, p8
The Nationalist, 24/02/1906, p3
The Nationalist, 26/08/1903, p2
