Composer and pianist, born in Henniker, New Hampshire, USA. She made her professional debut as a pianist in Boston in 1884, the next year appearing with the Boston Symphony. Also in 1884 she married Dr Henry H A Beach (d.1910), who encouraged her shift to composing, even though she had little formal instruction in it. Her Gaelic Symphony, premiered by the Boston Symphony in 1896, was the first such work by an American woman, as was the piano concerto the orchestra premiered four years later (with the composer as soloist). She later lived in Europe (191014), where she again gave piano concerts, usually of her own work. She composed over 150 works - many of them settings of well-known poems - and gained some prominence both in Europe and the USA, but she was continually hampered by the era's resistance to woman composers, reflected in the fact that she went through most of her public career known as Mrs H H A Beach.
Amy Marcy Cheney Beach (September 5, 1867 – December 27, 1944) was an American composer and pianist.
She was born Amy Marcy Cheney in Henniker, N. she taught herself to read at age three, and began composing simple waltzes at the age of four. She began formal piano lessons with her mother at the age of six, and a year later started giving public recitals, playing her works by Handel, Beethoven, Chopin, and her own pieces. In 1875, her family moved to Boston, where they were advised to enter her into a European conservatory. Her parents opted for local training, hiring Ernst Perabo and later Carl Baermann as piano teachers. At age fourteen, Amy received her only formal training in composition with Junius W. Other than this year of training, Amy was self-taught;
She made her professional debut in Boston in 1883, playing Chopin’s Rondo in E flat and Moscheles’s G minor Concerto; shortly thereafter appeared as a soloist with the Boston Symphony Opera. Following her marriage in 1885 to Dr. Henry Harris Aubrey Beach– a Boston surgeon 24 years older than her– she agreed to limit performances to one public recital a year, with proceeds donated to charity. Her first major success was the Mass in E Flat Major, which was performed in 1892 by the Handel and Haydn Society. The well-received performance of the Mass moved Beach into the rank of America’s foremost composers.
After her husband died in 1910, she toured Europe as a pianist, playing her own compositions; Beach later moved to New York, where she became the virtual composer-in-residence at St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church. She also used her status as the top American woman composer to further the careers of young musicians;
Her compositions include the Mass in E flat Major (1892), the Gaelic Symphony (1893), a violin sonata, a piano concerto, the Variations on Balkan Themes, a piano quintet, several choral and chamber music compositions (including the Pastorale for winds), piano music, and the opera Cabildo (1932).
On July 9, 2000 at Boston's famous Hatch Shell, the Boston Pops paid tribute to Amy Beach. Amy Beach is the only woman composer on the granite wall.
User Comments Add a comment…