Amy Beach

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At the beginning of the 20th century, a musical genuis in composition and piano performance grew up in the American northeast to later become a most celebrated musical ambassador for America. Amy Marcy Beach (September 5, 1867 – December 27, 1944), was an American pianist and composer of classical music. She was the first successful female American composer as well as the first female American composer of a symphony, the "Gaelic Symphony". Many of her compositions and performances were under the name Mrs. H.H.A. Beach.

She was born Amy Marcy Cheney in Henniker, New Hampshire. As a child prodigy, she was able to harmonize at the age of two, played at the piano at the age of three, and composed her first song at the age of 4. At a time when women were not supposed to be in the "limelight", she was still ably taught by her mother who gave Amy her early music lessons and built her confidence. The family soon moved to Boston and Amy continued her musical instructions in piano, theory and some composition with other instructors although she mainly self-taught herself in compostiion. She made her professional debut in Boston in 1883 and shortly thereafter appeared as a soloist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Following her marriage in 1885 to Dr. Henry H.A. Beach, a well-known Boston surgeon, she largely stopped performing (at his request) and devoted herself instead to composition. After her husband died in 1910, she toured Europe the next year as a pianist and was widely acclaimed. She usually performed her own compositions although she was very much at home with selections from the standard classical repertoire. She returned to America in 1914 and continued her concertizing, touring and composing. Amy spent time at the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire. She died in New York City.

Her compositions include the Gaelic Symphony (1893), the Mass in E flat Major, a piano concerto1900, a quantity of choral music, chamber music, piano music, and the opera Cabildo (1932). She was most popular, however, for her songs because Amy was able to capture the nuances and moments in everyday life in musical episodes with very coordinated lyrics and verses. For example, her Three Shakespearean Songs, Op. 44 combine the verses with melodies which bring episodes from the Tempest and A Midsummer's Night Dream clearly to life. Her songs for solo voice were musical poems which particularly explained so many complex emotions in a simple and beautiful way. Examples are: "Ah, Love, but a Day", and "The Year's at the Spring", which were just some of her prolific output in popular songs.

Amy Beach is the only female member of the Boston School of American composers, who were greatly influenced by the German romantic stylism of the day. On July 9, 2000 at Boston's famous Hatch Shell, the Boston Pops paid tribute to Amy Beach. Her name was added to the granite wall on "The Shell". It joins 86 other composers such as Bach, Handel, Chopin, Debussy, MacDowell and Beethoven. Although Amy Beach is the only woman composer on the granite wall, Amy is a full equal to the other 86 on "The Shell".

References
ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

  • Adrienne Fried Block, Amy Beach, Passionate Victorian: The Life and Work of an American Composer, 1867-1944 (Oxford University Press, 1998)
  • Amy Beach, The Sea-Fairies: Opus 59, edited by Andrew Thomas Kuster (Madison, WI: A-R Editions, 1999) ISBN 0895794357

de:Amy Beach

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