Amy Beach
Late Romantic · 1867–1944
Amy Beach was born Amy Cheney in Henniker, New Hampshire, in 1867, and showed unusual musical gifts almost from infancy, singing melodies accurately before she turned two and composing piano pieces as a small child. At eighteen she married Henry Beach, a Boston physician a generation older, who asked her to all but give up public performing. She poured her energy into composition instead, publishing as Mrs. H. H. A. Beach.
Her Symphony in E minor, the Gaelic, built on Irish folk melodies, was premiered by the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1896. It was the first symphony by an American woman to be published and performed by a major orchestra. After her husband died in 1910 she returned to the concert stage, touring Europe and then America as a pianist playing her own music.
If she's new to you, start with the Gaelic Symphony, then the Piano Concerto in C sharp minor, which she wrote for herself to play.
15 works in the catalog, across 5 genres. Log what you listen to with Opus, the classical music journal for iPhone.
Chamber
- Piano Quintet in F sharp minor, op. 67
- Piano Trio in A minor, op. 150
- Romance for Violin and Piano, op. 23
- String Quartet, op. 89 In one movement
- Violin Sonata in A minor, op. 34
Keyboard
- A Hermit Thrush at Eve, op. 92 no. 1
- Four Sketches, op. 15
- Variations on Balkan Themes, op. 60
Orchestral
- Piano Concerto in C sharp minor, op. 45
- Symphony in E minor, op. 32 'Gaelic'
Stage
- Cabildo, op. 149 Opera in one act
Vocal
- Canticle of the Sun, op. 123 Cantata
- Mass in E flat major, op. 5
- The Chambered Nautilus, op. 66 Cantata
- Three Browning Songs, op. 44
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