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Quick facts for kids Amy Beach

Background information
Birth name	Amy Marcy Cheney
Born	(1867-09-05)September 5, 1867 Henniker, New Hampshire, United States
Died	December 27, 1944(1944-12-27) (aged 77) New York City, US
Occupation(s)	Composer, Pianist

Amy Marcy Cheney Beach (September 5, 1867 – December 27, 1944) was an American composer and pianist. She was the first American woman to become a successful composer of large-scale classical music. Her "Gaelic" Symphony, first performed in 1896, was the first symphony written and published by an American woman. She was also one of the first American composers to succeed without studying music in Europe. Amy Beach was highly respected and praised during her time. As a pianist, she was known for her concerts in the United States and Germany, where she often played her own music.

Biography
Compositions
Writings
Images for kids
See also

Biography

Early Life and Musical Talent

Amy Marcy Cheney was born in Henniker, New Hampshire on September 5, 1867. Her mother, Clara, was a talented pianist and singer. Amy showed amazing musical gifts from a very young age. By age one, she could sing forty songs accurately. At two, she could create her own melodies. She even taught herself to read at age three.

When she was four, Amy composed three waltzes for piano. She did this in her head while at her grandfather's farm, even without a piano nearby! She could also play music by ear, including complex four-part hymns. Her parents found it hard to keep up with her musical demands. Her mother tried to stop her from playing the family piano too much, but Amy often insisted on what music was played at home.

Amy started formal piano lessons with her mother at age six. Soon, she was giving public concerts, playing pieces by famous composers like Handel, Beethoven, and Chopin, along with her own compositions. People were so impressed that agents wanted her to go on concert tours, but her parents said no. Amy was later thankful for this decision.

In 1875, her family moved to Chelsea, near Boston. They decided to have Amy trained locally instead of sending her to Europe. She studied piano with famous teachers like Ernst Perabo and Carl Baermann. At age fourteen, she also learned harmony and counterpoint from Junius W. Hill. This was her only formal training in composing. However, she taught herself much more by reading every book she could find on music theory and orchestration. She even translated French books on orchestration into English for herself.

First Concerts

Amy Cheney made her first big concert appearance at age sixteen on October 18, 1883. She played with the Boston Music Hall orchestra and received great praise. Critics were very positive, and the audience loved her performance. Over the next two years, she continued to perform in important halls and even starred in the Boston Symphony's final concert of the 1884–85 season.

Amy once remembered a rehearsal in 1885 for a Mendelssohn concerto. The conductor slowed the orchestra down to make it easier for her. But when she started playing, she played at the correct, fast speed. She said, "I did not know that he was sparing me, but I did know that the tempo dragged, and I swung the orchestra into time."

Marriage and Music

In 1885, Amy married Dr. Henry Harris Aubrey Beach, a surgeon from Boston. He was twenty-four years older than her; she was eighteen. After her marriage, her name on concert programs and published music became "Mrs. H. H. A. Beach."

Her husband had certain conditions for their marriage. She agreed to live as a society lady and support the arts. She also agreed not to teach piano, which was seen as a way for women to earn "pin money." She also promised to limit her public performances to two per year, with the money going to charity. Most importantly, she agreed to focus more on composing than performing. Her husband also did not approve of her studying with a tutor, so she continued to teach herself composition. These kinds of rules were common for women from wealthy families at that time.

Amy later said that she was happy in her marriage. After her husband passed away in 1910, she sometimes used "Amy Beach" when performing in Germany. However, for the rest of her life, she continued to use "Mrs. H. H. A. Beach."

Becoming Famous

A major success in her composing career came in 1892 with her Mass in E-flat major. It was performed by the Handel and Haydn Society orchestra, which had never performed a piece by a woman before. Newspaper critics praised the Mass and called Beach one of America's leading composers.

Beach then achieved another important milestone: her Gaelic Symphony. This was the first symphony composed and published by an American woman. It was first performed on October 30, 1896, by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and it was a huge success. Other famous composers of the time, like George Whitefield Chadwick and Horatio Parker, enjoyed it greatly. They even joked that she was "one of the boys." These composers, including Beach, became known as the Boston Six. Amy Beach was the youngest of the group.

In 1900, the Boston Symphony also performed Beach's Piano Concerto, with Amy herself as the piano soloist.

Life After Her Husband

Amy's husband passed away in June 1910, and her mother died seven months later. Her father had died earlier in 1895. Feeling unable to work, Beach traveled to Europe to recover. She gradually started giving concerts again in 1912. Her first European performance was in Dresden, Germany, where she played her violin and piano sonata to good reviews.

She gave more concerts in Munich and other cities, playing her own songs and piano pieces, as well as works by other composers. Her music became popular, and there was a demand for her sheet music. In late 1913, she performed her Piano Concerto with orchestras in Leipzig, Hamburg, and Berlin. Her "Gaelic Symphony" was also performed. A Hamburg critic called her "a possessor of musical gifts of the highest kind." She was seen as the first American woman to compose music of such high quality.

She returned to America in 1914, at the start of World War I. She continued to compose and perform. In 1915, her music was honored at the Panama–Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco. Her Panama Hymn was specially written for the event.

After 1916, Hillsborough, New Hampshire, became her official home. She also spent time in New York City. For several summers, she composed at her cottage in Centerville, Massachusetts. This cottage was bought with the money she earned from her very successful song, Ecstasy.

From 1921 onwards, she spent part of each summer at the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire. This was a place where artists could work. There, she met other women composers and musicians who became her friends.

Amy Beach used her position as a leading female American composer to help young musicians. She had agreed not to give private lessons when she was married, but later she became a music educator. She was the President of the Board of Councillors of the New England Conservatory of Music. She coached and gave advice to many young composers and students. She encouraged them to work hard and perfect their skills. In her document, "Music's Ten Commandments as Given for Young Composers," she advised young musicians to study all kinds of music and to be creative.

From 1904 to 1943, Beach wrote many articles about how serious piano players should practice and prepare. She was a popular speaker and performer for schools and clubs, and she received an honorary master's degree from the University of New Hampshire in 1928. She also helped create "Beach Clubs" to teach children about music. She was the first president of the Society of American Women Composers.

Amy Beach retired in 1940 due to heart disease and passed away in New York City in 1944. She is buried with her husband in Boston, Massachusetts.

Compositions

Amy Beach was part of a group of composers known as the "Second New England School" or "Boston Group." Her music is mostly in the Romantic style, similar to composers like Brahms or Rachmaninoff. In her later works, she experimented with new sounds and harmonies.

Beach's compositions include a one-act opera called Cabildo and many other pieces.

Symphonic Works

She wrote the Gaelic Symphony (1896) and the Piano Concerto in C-sharp minor. Another orchestral piece, Bal masque, also has a version for solo piano. She also wrote pieces for orchestra with voice, such as Eilende Wolken.

Choral Works

Beach composed many pieces for choirs. Her sacred choral works, often for four voices and organ, include the Mass in E-flat major (1892) and her setting of St. Francis's Canticle of the Sun (1924, 1928). She also wrote many secular choral works, some with orchestra, piano, or organ.

Chamber Music

Her chamber music includes a sonata for violin and piano, a piano trio, a string quartet, and a piano quintet.

Amy Beach published over 300 works during her lifetime, covering almost every type of music. The largest group of her works are her songs and vocal chamber music. She also wrote many pieces for solo piano. Beach was a skilled pianist and often performed her own compositions. She toured widely, bringing classical music to many parts of the United States and Germany. Two of her most often performed instrumental works are the Sonata in A Minor for Piano and Violin, Op. 34, and the Quintet in F# minor, Op. 67.

Sonata in A minor for piano and violin, Op. 34

In January 1897, Beach performed her Sonata for Piano and Violin, Op. 34, with famous violinist Franz Kneisel. She had composed this piece in the spring of 1896. The Sonata has four movements, and its musical ideas are connected throughout the piece.

The premiere was followed by several other performances. Critics had mixed opinions, but audiences loved the slow third movement, often applauding enthusiastically between movements. In Europe, the piece was generally well-received.

Quintet in F-sharp minor for Piano and Strings, Op. 67

In 1905, Beach wrote her own three-movement Quintet for Piano and Strings in F-sharp minor, Op. 67. This quintet was often performed during her lifetime, both in concerts and on the radio. Beach frequently played it herself with string quartets, including during a tour with the Kneisel Quartet.

This work is often seen as showing the influence of composer Brahms in its style and structure. The main musical idea throughout the three movements is even borrowed from a Brahms quintet. The piece has a sad or mournful feeling, using musical patterns often linked with sorrow.

Critics generally praised the work, noting its creativity and how well it fit into traditional forms. They also admired how it created a rich, orchestral sound while still being intimate chamber music. This piece helped her reputation as a serious composer of classical music.

String Quartet, Op. 89

Beach's String Quartet is a single-movement piece, considered one of her more mature works. She worked on it for about ten years, finishing it in 1929. This piece is special because it doesn't include a piano part for her to perform.

The quartet uses three different Eskimo or Inuit melodies, taken from a book about Alaskan Inuit tribes. Beach wove these melodies into her music, blending them with a more modern, dissonant sound. The texture of the music is simpler than her earlier Romantic works, showing a more modern style.

The piece was first performed in April 1929. It was performed several times in New York and other cities. However, Beach was never fully satisfied with the performances, and the work did not become as famous as she hoped. Critics noted that it was different from her usual style, less emotional, but showed great technical skill. Beach's use of Inuit and Native American tunes became a feature in several of her later works, helping her create a more modern sound.

Solo Piano Music

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. 91 (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)

Songs

Amy Beach was most popular for her songs, writing about 150 of them. While some of the words were her own or her husband's, most were by other poets. "The Year's At the Spring" from Three Browning Songs, Op. 44 is probably her most famous song.

In the early 1890s, Beach became interested in folk songs. She shared this interest with other composers, and it helped start the first nationalist movement in American music. Beach wrote about thirty songs inspired by folk music, including Scottish, Irish, Balkan, African-American, and Native American tunes.

Writings

Amy Beach was a thoughtful musician who wrote for journals and newspapers. She often gave advice to young musicians and composers, especially women. She wrote articles about careers and piano technique, such as "To the Girl who Wants to Compose" and "Emotion Versus Intellect in Music." In 1915, she wrote Music’s Ten Commandments as Given for Young Composers, sharing her own ideas about learning music.

Images for kids

Amy Beach in 1908