Amy Beach

1.1. Early life and background

Amy Marcy Cheney was born on September 5, 1867, in Henniker, New Hampshire. Her parents were Charles Abbott Cheney and Clara Imogene (Marcy) Cheney. The family had a strong artistic inclination; her mother, Clara, was an accomplished pianist and singer. Amy displayed signs of being a child prodigy from a very young age. By age one, she could accurately sing forty songs. At two, she was capable of improvising counter-melody, and by age three, she had taught herself to read. At four, she mentally composed three waltzes for piano during a summer at her grandfather's farm in West Henniker, New Hampshire, playing them only upon her return home. She also possessed the ability to play music by ear, including four-part hymns.

These exceptional musical talents were linked to innate conditions. She may have had perfect pitch, allowing her to play music entirely by ear. Additionally, she might have experienced synesthesia, a neurological condition where each musical key was associated with a specific color. As a child, Beach would ask her parents to play music based on the color she associated with the key, though she did not have a color for every major key and only two minor keys. This heightened sensitivity to keys facilitated her ability to play by ear and fueled her pursuit of musical excellence. Despite her prodigious talents, her family, particularly her mother, initially attempted to discourage her from playing the family piano, believing it would undermine parental authority. Amy often dictated the music played in the home, becoming upset if it did not meet her standards.

1.2. Education

Amy Beach began formal piano lessons with her mother at the age of six. She quickly progressed, giving public recitals that included works by Handel, Beethoven, and Chopin, alongside her own compositions. One such recital garnered a review in the arts journal The Folio, leading to multiple agents proposing concert tours, which her parents declined. Beach later expressed gratitude for this decision.

In 1875, the Cheney family relocated to Chelsea, Massachusetts, a suburb near Boston. Despite recommendations to enroll Amy in a European conservatory, her parents opted for local training. She studied piano with Ernst Perabo and later with Carl Baermann, a student of Franz Liszt. From 1881 to 1882, at the age of fourteen, Beach also received her only formal instruction in composition, studying harmony and counterpoint with Junius W. Hill. Beyond this, her compositional education was largely self-guided. She diligently collected and studied every available book on theory, composition, and orchestration, teaching herself counterpoint, harmony, and fugue. She even translated French treatises on orchestration by François-Auguste Gevaert and Hector Berlioz, which were considered essential texts for composers, into English for her own study.

1.3. Early career

Amy Cheney made her professional concert debut at the age of sixteen on October 18, 1883, at a "Promenade Concert" in Boston's Music Hall, conducted by Adolph Neuendorff. She performed Chopin's Rondo in E-flat and was the piano soloist in Moscheles's Piano Concerto No. 3 in G minor. The performance was met with widespread acclaim, with one biographer noting it was "hard to imagine a more positive critical reaction to a debut," and the audience was "enthusiastic in the extreme." Over the next two years, her career included performances at Chickering Hall, and she was featured in the final performance of the Boston Symphony's 1884-85 season.

Beach famously recounted a rehearsal for a Mendelssohn concerto in 1885, where the conductor deliberately slowed the orchestra during the last movement to accommodate the teenage soloist. However, when Beach began her piano part, she played at the full prescribed tempo, later stating, "I did not know that he was sparing me, but I did know that the tempo dragged, and I swung the orchestra into time."

1.4. Marriage and personal life

In 1885, at the age of eighteen, Amy Cheney married Dr. Henry Harris Aubrey Beach (1843-1910), a prominent Boston surgeon, Harvard lecturer, and amateur singer who was twenty-four years her senior. Following her marriage, her name was consistently listed on concert programs and published compositions as "Mrs. H. H. A. Beach."

The marriage came with specific conditions regarding her musical career, largely influenced by the societal expectations of the time for women of her class. She agreed to live as a society matron and patron of the arts, and notably, she pledged never to teach piano, an activity often associated with women earning "pin money." She also agreed to limit her public performances to two recitals per year, with all profits donated to charity. Furthermore, she committed to prioritizing composition over performance, despite her personal conviction that she was "a pianist first and foremost." Her husband's potential disapproval of her studying with a tutor also necessitated her self-guided approach to composition. These restrictions were common for middle- and upper-class women, mirroring the sentiment expressed to Fanny Mendelssohn that music should be an "ornament" rather than a profession for women.

In 1942, reflecting on her marriage, Beach stated, "I was happy and he was content" and "I belonged to a happy period that may never come again." After Henry's death in 1910, she briefly used "Amy Beach" for performances in Germany, as the "Mrs." title confused German audiences. However, she reverted to "Mrs. H. H. A. Beach" for the remainder of her life upon her return to the United States.

1.5. Widowhood and European years

Tragedy struck Beach's life in quick succession when her husband died in June 1910 (the couple had no children), followed by her mother seven months later. Her father, Charles Cheney, had passed away earlier in 1895. Overwhelmed by grief, Beach found herself unable to compose for a period. Seeking recovery and a change of scenery, she traveled to Europe in 1911. During her time there, she adopted the name "Amy Beach" for professional purposes. She traveled with Marcella Craft, a celebrated American soprano who was a prima donna at the Berlin Royal Opera. Beach's first year in Europe was primarily a period of rest.

In 1912, she gradually resumed her concert career. Her European debut took place in Dresden in October 1912, where she performed her Violin and Piano Sonata with violinist "Dr. Bülau" to favorable reviews. In January 1913, she gave a concert in Munich, again featuring her violin sonata, along with three sets of songs (two of her own and one by Johannes Brahms) and solo piano music by Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms. While two critics found her songs "kitsch," Beach remained undeterred, noting the audience was "large and very enthusiastic." Demand for sheet music of her songs and solo piano pieces subsequently increased in Germany, exceeding the supply from her publisher, Arthur P. Schmidt. Later that January in Munich, she performed her Piano Quintet, with one critic praising her compositional skill more than her playing. In a subsequent concert in Breslau, fewer of Beach's songs were featured.

In November and December 1913, she performed the solo part in her Piano Concerto with orchestras in Leipzig, Hamburg, and Berlin. Her Gaelic Symphony was also performed in Hamburg and Leipzig. A Hamburg critic lauded her as "undeniably a possessor of musical gifts of the highest kind; a musical nature touched with genius." She was celebrated as the first American woman capable of composing music of a "European quality of excellence." It was during this period that her works, including the "Gaelic" Symphony and Piano Concerto, were performed by the Berlin Philharmonic, making her the first American composer and the first woman composer to have her works performed by the renowned orchestra.

1.6. Return to America and later life

Beach returned to America in 1914, shortly after the outbreak of World War I. Although Beach and Marcella Craft made pro-German statements to the American press, Beach clarified that her allegiance was to "the musical, not the militaristic Germany." She entrusted some of her European manuscripts to Craft, who brought them back to the United States. Beach delayed her own departure until September 1914, resulting in a trunk full of additional manuscripts being confiscated at the Belgian border. She eventually recovered these contents in 1929.

In 1915, the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco commemorated the opening of the Panama Canal and the city's recovery from the 1906 earthquake and fire. Amy Beach was frequently honored with concerts of her music and receptions throughout 1915, and her Panama Hymn was commissioned for the occasion. She visited her aunt Franc and cousin Ethel in San Francisco in 1915 and 1916, who were then her closest living relatives. Around August 1916, Beach, Franc, and Ethel left San Francisco, leaving Franc's husband behind for unknown reasons. The three women settled in Hillsborough, New Hampshire, the birthplace of Franc and Beach's mother. Hillsborough became Beach's official residence, where she voted in presidential elections. In 1918, her cousin Ethel developed a terminal illness, and Beach dedicated time to caring for her, as Franc, at 75, was unable to do so alone.

Aside from concert tours and the period of Ethel's illness until her death in 1920, Beach also spent time in New York City. After someone mistakenly asked if she was the daughter of Mrs. H. H. A. Beach, she resumed using her married name, though she used "Amy Beach" on her bookplates and stationery. For several summers, she composed at her cottage in Centerville, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod. This cottage was built on a five-acre property Beach purchased with royalties from her successful 1892 song, Ecstasy.

While continuing to receive income from compositions published by Arthur P. Schmidt, she also had new works published by G. Schirmer, Inc. between 1914 and 1921. From 1921 onward, she spent part of each summer as a Fellow at the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire. There, she composed several works and connected with other women composers and musicians, including Emilie Frances Bauer, Marion Bauer, Mabel Wheeler Daniels, Fannie Charles Dillon, and Ethel Glenn Hier, who became her long-time friends. However, "generational and gender divisions" existed among the music Fellows at the MacDowell Colony, with some feeling that Beach's music was "no longer fashionable."

In 1924, Beach sold the Boston house she had inherited from her husband. Her aunt Franc, who had become "feeble" around 1920 and developed dementia in 1924, died in November 1925 in Hillsborough. After Franc's death, Beach had no surviving relatives as close as Ethel and Franc had been. In the fall of 1930, Beach rented a studio apartment in New York, becoming the virtual composer-in-residence at St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church. Her music had been used in services there for two decades, attributed to "H. H. A. Beach," with "Mrs." added only from 1931.

Beach leveraged her status as a leading American female composer to support the careers of young musicians. Although she had agreed not to give private music lessons while married, she actively worked as a music educator in the early 20th century. She served as President of the Board of Councillors of the New England Conservatory of Music. She coached and provided feedback to numerous young composers, musicians, and students, acting as a mentor and encouraging them to perfect their craft through diligent practice. In her document, "Music's Ten Commandments as Given for Young Composers," Beach advised young musicians to thoroughly analyze works from every genre, monitor their technical progress, and incorporate variety whenever possible. From 1904 to 1943, Beach published many articles on programming, preparation, and study techniques for serious piano players, often drawing from her own practice routine. Given her prominence and advocacy for music education, she was a highly sought-after speaker and performer for various educational institutions and clubs, including the University of New Hampshire, which awarded her an honorary master's degree in 1928. She also helped establish "Beach Clubs" to teach and educate children in music. She held leadership roles in organizations focused on music education and women, serving as the first president of the Society of American Women Composers.

Beach spent the winter and spring of 1928-29 in Rome. She attended concerts almost daily, finding Respighi's Feste Romane "superbly brilliant," but disliked a piece by Paul Hindemith. In March 1929, she gave a benefit concert for the American Hospital in Rome, where her song "The Year's at the Spring" received an encore and raised a substantial sum of money. Beach, like her friends in Rome, briefly admired the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. She returned to the United States with a two-week stopover in Leipzig, where she reunited with her old friend, the singer Marcella Craft. In 1942, the Boston sculptor Bashka Paeff created a bust of Beach, commissioned by the League of American Pen-Women, which was donated to Washington's Phillips Collection.

She was a member of Chapter R (New York City) of the P.E.O. Sisterhood. Late in her life, she collaborated on the "Ballad of P.E.O." with lyrics by Ruth Comfort Mitchell. Heart disease led to Beach's retirement in 1940, around which time she was honored at a testimonial dinner by 200 friends in New York. Amy Beach died in New York City on December 27, 1944, at the age of 77. She is buried alongside her husband in Forest Hills Cemetery in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts.

2.1. Rise to prominence

A significant compositional triumph came with her Mass in E-flat major, performed in 1892 by the Handel and Haydn Society orchestra. This was a historic event, as the society, founded in 1815, had never before performed a work by a woman. Newspaper music critics widely declared Beach one of America's foremost composers, comparing her Mass to those by Luigi Cherubini and Bach.

Beach followed this success with a landmark achievement in music history: her Gaelic Symphony, which premiered on October 30, 1896, performed by the Boston Symphony. It was the first symphony composed and published by an American woman and was met with "exceptional success." However, critics often focused on her gender, attempting to relate the symphony's merits or defects to the composer's sex. Composer George Whitefield Chadwick praised the work, writing to Beach that she would "have to be counted in, whether you [like it] or not - one of the boys."

In 1900, the Boston Symphony premiered Beach's Piano Concerto, with the composer herself as the soloist. It has been suggested that this piece reflects Beach's struggles for control over her musical life against her mother and husband. Beach was one of the first American women to gain widespread popularity for composing symphonies.

2.2. Symphonic works

Beach's major orchestral compositions include the Gaelic Symphony (1896) and the Piano Concerto in C-sharp minor (1898-99). Another orchestral piece, Bal masque, also has a solo piano version. She also composed two pieces for orchestra with voice, Eilende Wolken and Jephthah's Daughter.

2.3. Choral and vocal works

Beach's sacred choral works are primarily for four voices and organ, but some are for voices and orchestra, including her Mass in E-flat major (1892) and her setting of St. Francis's Canticle of the Sun (1924, 1928), first performed at St. Bartholomew's in New York. A setting of the Te Deum with organ premiered with the choir of men and boys at Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Boston. The Capitol Hill Choral Society of Washington, D.C., recorded the Canticle of the Sun, seven Communion Responses, and other pieces by Beach in 1998.

She also composed several dozen secular choral works, accompanied by orchestra, piano, or organ. Despite their artistic merit, her publisher Arthur P. Schmidt once noted that her "choral pieces had practically no sale."

Beach was most popular for her approximately 150 songs. While the words for about five of these songs were her own, and a few by H. H. A. Beach, the majority were settings of other poets' works. "The Year's At the Spring" from Three Browning Songs, Op. 44 is arguably Beach's best-known vocal work. Despite the volume and popularity of her songs during her lifetime, no single-composer collection of Beach's songs exists, though some are available through modern publishers.

In the early 1890s, Beach developed a keen interest in folk songs, an interest shared by many of her colleagues, contributing to the first nationalist movement in American music. Beach's contributions included around thirty songs inspired by various folk traditions, including Scottish, Irish, Balkan, African-American, and Native American origins.

2.4. Chamber music

Beach's chamber music compositions are a significant part of her output, including a violin sonata, a romance, and three additional pieces for violin and piano, a piano trio, a string quartet, and a piano quintet. Of the over 300 works she published during her lifetime, which spanned almost every genre, her art songs and vocal chamber music constitute the largest category. Beyond these, she wrote numerous chamber works and transcriptions for piano, such as Variations on Balkan Themes, composed in 1904 in response to revolts in the Balkans against the Ottoman Empire. This work is considered Beach's "longest and most important solo" piano composition. Twelve of her works are instrumental chamber pieces.

A notable aspect of Beach's musicianship was her role as a virtuoso pianist, regularly performing both her own compositions and those of other composers. She toured extensively in Germany, New England, and across to the Pacific Coast, bringing European-American concert music to the western states. Among her most frequently performed instrumental works are the Sonata in A Minor for Piano and Violin, Op. 34, and the Quintet in F♯ minor, Op. 67, both extensively programmed in the United States and Germany. Her String Quartet, Op. 89, further illustrates her compositional skill and adherence to tradition.

2.5. Solo piano music

Amy Beach composed numerous works for solo piano, reflecting her evolution as a composer. Her solo piano repertoire includes:

• Valse Caprice, Op. 4 (1889)
• Ballade, Op. 6 (1894)
• Sketches, Op. 15 (1892)
• Bal Masque, Op. 22 (1894)
• Children's Carnival Op. 25 (1894)
• Three Pieces, Op. 28 (1894)
• Children's Album, Op. 36 (1897)
• Scottish Legend and Gavotte Fantastique, Op. 54 (1903)
• Variations on Balkan Themes, Op. 60 (1904)
• Four Eskimo Pieces, Op. 64 (1907)
• Suite Francaise, Op. 65 (1905)
• Prelude and Fugue, Op. 81 (1914)
• From Blackbird Hills, Op. 83 (1922)
• Fantasia Fugata, Op. 87 (1917)
• Far Hills of Eire, O, Op. 91 (1923)
• Hermit Thrush at Eve, at Morn, Op. 92 (1922)
• From Grandmother's Garden, Op. 97 (1922)
• Farewell Summer, Dancing Leaves, Op. 102 (1924)
• Old Chapel by Moonlight, Op. 106 (1924)
• Nocturne, Op. 107 (1924)
• A Cradle Song of the Lonely Mother, Op. 108 (1914)
• Tyrolean Valse Fantaisie, Op. 116 (1924)
• From Six to Twelve, Op. 119 (1932)
• Three Pieces, Op. 128 (1932)
• Out of the Depths, Op. 130 (1932)
• Five Improvisations, Op. 148 (1924-26)
• A Bit of Cairo (c. 1928)

3.1. Musical style and influences

Beach's writing is primarily in a Romantic idiom, often compared to that of Johannes Brahms or Sergei Rachmaninoff. She skillfully harmonized Brahms's robust and intricate compositional techniques with Wagner's progressive harmony and chromaticism. Her self-taught understanding of French music theory contributed to her colorful orchestration, fluid modulation, captivating melodic beauty, and passionate expression, leading to comparisons with composers like César Franck and early Alexander von Zemlinsky.

Initially, her work began as an imitation of German Romanticism. However, through her friendship with George Whitefield Chadwick, respect for Edward MacDowell, and a certain antipathy towards Antonín Dvořák, she increasingly incorporated elements of folk music from the British Isles, particularly Scottish and Irish folk songs. The subtitle of her only symphony, "Gaelic," alludes to the Goidelic branch of the Celtic peoples, signifying an "Irish style." In her later works, she experimented, moving away from strict tonality and employing whole tone scales, more exotic harmonies, and advanced techniques, pushing the boundaries of her chromatic writing.

3.2. Synesthesia

Amy Beach possessed synesthesia, a condition similar to that experienced by composers like Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Claude Debussy, where she perceived colors when hearing sounds, or sounds when stimulated by colors. This unique sensory experience played a role in her compositional process, particularly in her choice of key signatures. She would select keys based on their associated colors. This heightened sensitivity to keys not only defined her as a noteworthy prodigy but also fueled her desire for musical excellence.

4.1. Writings

Beach wrote numerous articles, essays, and other publications, providing valuable advice to young musicians and composers, especially female composers. Her writings covered topics from career guidance to piano technique. Notable articles include "To the Girl who Wants to Compose" (1918) and "Emotion Versus Intellect in Music" (1933). In 1915, she penned Music's Ten Commandments as Given for Young Composers, which outlined many of her self-teaching principles and encouraged young musicians to analyze works from every genre, monitor their technical progress, and incorporate variety. From 1904 to 1943, Beach published extensively on programming, preparation, and study techniques for serious piano players, often drawing from her personal practice routine.

4.2. Advocacy

Beach utilized her prominent position as a leading American female composer to foster the careers of aspiring musicians. While her marriage agreement prevented her from giving private music lessons, she actively engaged as a music educator in the early 20th century. She served as President of the Board of Councillors of the New England Conservatory of Music. She coached and mentored numerous young composers, musicians, and students, encouraging them to dedicate time to perfecting their craft through rigorous practice.

Given her status and dedication to music education, she was highly sought after as a speaker and performer for various educational institutions and clubs. For instance, she received an honorary master's degree from the University of New Hampshire in 1928. She also played a role in establishing "Beach Clubs," which aimed to teach and educate children in music. Furthermore, she held leadership positions in organizations focused on music education and women, notably serving as the first president of the Society of American Women Composers.

5.1. Contemporary reception

During her lifetime, Beach's music and career were largely viewed with appreciation. Her Mass in E-flat major (1892) was critically lauded, with newspaper music critics declaring her one of America's foremost composers and comparing her work to that of Cherubini and Bach. Her Gaelic Symphony (1896) also premiered with "exceptional success," although critics often focused on her gender. Despite this, her inclusion in the "Boston Six" alongside prominent male composers like George Whitefield Chadwick and Horatio Parker solidified her standing. Her Piano Concerto (1900) further cemented her reputation.

Her European tours in the early 1910s were met with significant praise. She was celebrated as the first American woman "able to compose music of a European quality of excellence," and a Hamburg critic described her as "undeniably a possessor of musical gifts of the highest kind; a musical nature touched with genius."

5.2. Posthumous reception and revival

Despite her fame and recognition during her lifetime, Amy Beach's work was largely neglected after her death in 1944 until the late 20th century. However, efforts to revive interest in her compositions have been largely successful in recent decades, leading to a renewed appreciation for her contributions to American music.

5.3. Critical reception of major works

Modern critical assessments have largely affirmed the significance of Beach's major compositions.

Her **Gaelic Symphony** has received considerable praise. Andrew Achenbach of Gramophone lauded the work in 2003 for its "big heart, irresistible charm and confident progress." In 2016, Jonathan Blumhofer of The Arts Fuse called it "by far the finest symphony by an American composer before Charles Ives and, by a wide margin, better than a lot that came after him. It surely is the most exciting symphony penned by an American before World War I." He further praised her "consistently excellent and colorful" command of instrumentation and how she balanced content and form, succeeding where contemporaries like George Whitefield Chadwick, John Knowles Paine, and Horatio Parker often fell short. Blumhofer noted that Beach's symphony is "never daunted by the long shadows Johannes Brahms and Beethoven cast across the Atlantic," calling it "a fresh, invigorating, and personal statement."

Beach's **Piano Concerto** has also been hailed as an overlooked masterwork by modern critics. In 1994, Phil Greenfield of The Baltimore Sun described it as "a colorful, dashing work that might become extremely popular if enough people get a chance to hear it." Joshua Kosman of the San Francisco Chronicle lauded the composition in 2000, noting that "Its four movements are packed with incident - beautifully shaped melodies (several of them drawn from her songs), a forthright rhythmic profile and a vivacious and sometimes contentious interplay between soloist and orchestra." He added that the piano part is "as flashy and demanding as a virtuoso vehicle calls for, but there is also an element of poignancy about it - a sense of constraint that seems to shadow even the work's most extroverted passages." Andrew Achenbach of Gramophone similarly declared it "ambitious" and "singularly impressive... a rewarding achievement all round, full of brilliantly idiomatic solo writing... lent further autobiographical intrigue by its assimilation of thematic material from three early songs."