Amy Marcy Cheney Beach was well on her way to becoming a famous concert pianist when the social expectations of the period intruded.
Amy Marcy Cheney Beach was born in Henniker, New Hamshire in the year 1869. Like many a composer before her she was a child prodigy (gifted with perfect pitch and recall):
Age
1: can sing up to 40 tunes accurately
2: can improvise a counter-melody to one sung by her mother
3: teaches herself to read
4: begins to compose music
6: begins piano lessons
7: performs her first piano recital (Music of Handel, Beethoven, Chopin in addition to her own works)
Her parents moved to Boston in 1875, where the teachers suggested she study at one of the European conservatories. The family couldn't afford this and instead opted for local teachers Ernst Perabo and later Carl Baermann. As a composer she is mostly self taught, only having one year of formal training under Junius W. Hill (harmony and counterpoint).
At the age 16 she made her concert debut performing the Rondo in E-flat (Chopin) and Moscheles's G minor Concerto. Reviews of this concert were favorable and predicted an outstanding career as a concert pianist. Two years later she would debut with the Boston Symphony Orchestra playing Chopin's Second Piano Concerto. Once again critics lauded her performance as 'perfect,' and any career as a concert pianist would have to wait another 25 years. For it was this year (1885) where societal norms intruded...
She married Dr. Henry Harris Aubrey Beach, a surgeon some 25 years older than her, who immediately curtailed her public performing (keeping her to one charity recital in the Boston area a year) and suggested she become a composer. Her works were published under the name Mrs. H.H.A. Beach. It was at this time that she undertook her own informal training in composition studying the works of Bach, Berlioz and others.
Her early works were mostly art songs and chamber works, but in 1892 she premiered the Mass in E Flat, Opus 5, for Soloists, Chorus and Orchestra, a work that would open doors to concert halls for her. She received many commissions and wrote such works as the Festival Jubilate, op. 17 for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, the 1898 Trans-Mississippi Exposition in Omaha commissioned her Song of Welcome, op. 42, Symphony in E minor (“Gaelic”) and Piano Concerto in c sharp, op. 45.
In 1911, a year after the death of her husband, she undertook a three year tour of Europe where both her performance and works garnered critical acclaim. In 1914 she returned to the US where she maintained an active schedule of winter touring and summer composing. During these times composing she was an annual visitor at the MacDowell Colony, an artist's retreat started by Marian MacDowell, pianist and wife of composer Edward MacDowell.
She was the virtual composer-in-residence at St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church, New York.
She used her status as as the first significant American woman composer to further the careers of young musicians. A member of several organizations through her life she was affiliated with the Music Teachers National Association and the Music Educators National Conference. She was also a founding member and the first president of the Society of American Women Composers.
She died of heart disease in 1944, leaving all future royalties from her compositions to the MacDowell Colony. Her's is the only name of a female composer on the granite wall of the famous “Hatch Shell” that comprises the orchestral stage in Boston. There she joined other composers such as Bach, Handel, Chopin, Debussy, MacDowell, and Beethoven.
Now to the music:
Piano Concerto in c sharp, op 45
1. Allegro moderato
Mary Louise Boehm, Pianist
PART I
Westphalian Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Siegfried Landau.
PART II
Even before the concerto was completed she was asked to perform the premier with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. This first movement is in Sonata form and contains two themes, the first, a sombre theme introduced by the orchestra and a second introduced by the piano, based on her art song, Jeune fille et jeune fleur, Op.1, No.4. She describes it as:
serious in character, piano and orchestra vying with each other in the development of the two principal themes. (From the program notes for the Nacos CD)
Here you'll find the second movement, a scherzo, based on another of her art songs, Empress of Night, Op.2, No.3. Listen to the third movement: Largo, here, based on Twilight, Op.2, No.1, which leads directly to the final movement.
Symphony in E Minor (Gaelic), Op.32
1. Allegro con fuoco
Nashville Symphony Orchestra, Kenneth Schermerhorn
This symphony was Beach's answer to Dvorak's call to American composers to choose traditional music from their own heritage. She chose four traditional Irish tunes as themes for her symphony. Her song Dark is the Night, Op.11, No.1, provides much of the music for the first movement, however, the closing theme of the exposition is an Irish jig.
2. Andante, Allegro vivace, Andante
The second movement, is monothematic based on a lyric Irish tune played by the oboe. Two andantes bookend a central scherzo in this movement.
3. Lento Con Molta Espressione
This movement in her own words conveys "the laments... romance and... dreams" of the Irish people. There are two sections, each one has as its source an Irish theme.
PART I
PART II
4. Allegro Di Molto
This movement blossoms out of two measures from the first movement and Beach writes that it is about the Celtic people, "their sturdy daily life, their passions and battles".
(all quotes from liner notes)
Go here for Dumbo's wonderful diary on Mozart's Requiem. I knew other composers than Sussmayer took turns at completing the work but never got a chance to hear them, and I really didn't know about the fugal amen Mozart wrote to conclude the Lacrimosa, I always learn something new when I read one of these diaries.
Next Week: William Walton's Facade
Coming Weeks: Liszt: Either the Dante Symphony or the Faust Symphony, Gian Carlo Menotti: Various works, Andreas Hammerschmidt, Music for Halloween, Lesser known ? (lesser known works by a well known composer TBD), Bernstein Symphony #3 Kaddish