Amy Beach
from George Grantham Bain Collection (Library of Congress)

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Amy Marcy Cheney Beach (b. 9/5/1867 – d. 12/27/1944) was an American composer and pianist. She was the first successful American female composer of large-scale art music.

Early years and Musical Education
She was born in Henniker, New Hampshire to Charles Abbott Cheney and Clara Imogene (Marcy) Cheney. Artistic ability ran in the family: Clara was reputedly an “excellent pianist and singer,” while Amy showed every sign of being a child prodigy. She was able to sing 40 songs accurately by age 1, she was capable of improvising counter-melody by age 2, and she taught herself to read at age 3. At 4, she composed three waltzes for piano during one summer at her grandfather’s farm in West Henniker, NH, despite the absence of a piano; instead, she composed the pieces mentally and played them when she returned home. She could also play music by ear, including 4-part hymns. The family struggled to keep up with her musical interests and demands.

Amy began formal piano lessons with her mother at age 6, and soon gave public recitals of works by Handel, Beethoven, and Chopin, as well as her own pieces.

In 1875, the Cheney family moved to Chelsea. They were advised there to enroll Amy in a European conservatory, but opted instead for local training.  In 1881–82, the 14-year-old also studied harmony and counterpoint with Junius W. Hill. This would be her only formal instruction as a composer, but she collected every book she could find on theory, composition, and orchestration.  She taught herself.

Early Career
Amy Cheney made her concert debut at age 16 on 10/18/1883, in a “Promenade Concert.” A biographer commented, “[i]t is hard to imagine a more positive critical reaction to a debut,” and her audience was “enthusiastic in the extreme.” The next 2 years of her career included performances in Chickering Hall and with the Boston Symphony.

Marriage
Beach was married in 1885 to Dr. Henry Harris Aubrey Beach, a Boston surgeon, Harvard lecturer, and amateur singer twenty-four years her senior (she was 18 at the time.) The marriage was conditioned upon her willingness “to live according to his status, that is, function as a society matron and patron of the arts. She agreed never to teach piano, an activity widely associated with women” and regarded as providing “pin money.” She further agreed to limit performances to 2 public recitals per year, with profits donated to charity, and to devote herself more to composition than to performance (although, as she wrote, “I thought I was a pianist first and foremost.“) Her self-guided education in composition was also necessitated by Dr. Beach, who may have disapproved of his wife studying with a tutor. Restrictions like these were typical for middle- and upper-class women of the time: as it was explained to a European counterpart, Fanny Mendelssohn, “Music will perhaps become his [Fanny’s brother Felix Mendelssohn’s] profession, while for you it can and must be only an ornament.”

In recollecting her married life in 1942, Beach stated, “I was happy and he was content” and “I belonged to a happy period that may never come again.”

A major compositional success came with her Mass in E-flat major, which was performed in 1892 by the Handel and Haydn Society orchestra, which since its foundation in 1815 had never performed a piece composed by a woman. Beach followed this up with an important milestone in music history: her Gaelic Symphony, the first symphony composed and published by an American woman. It premiered October 30, 1896, performed by the Boston Symphony. In 1900, the Boston Symphony premiered Beach’s Piano Concerto, with the composer as soloist.

Widowhood, years in Europe
Beach’s husband died in June 1910 (the couple had been childless) and her mother 7 months later. Her father had died in 1895. She felt unable to work for a while. She went to Europe in hopes of recovering there. In Europe she changed her name to “Amy Beach” and traveled together with Marcella (Marcia) Craft, an American soprano who was “prima dona of the Berlin Royal Opera.” In 1912 she gradually resumed giving concerts and continued in Germany until her return to America in 1914.

Return to America
In 1916, she, her Aunt Franc, and Cousin Ethel took up residence in Hillsborough, New Hampshire, where Franc and Beach’s mother had been born. Beach also spent part of her time in New York City. For a few summers, she composed at her cottage in Centerville, Massachusetts on Cape Cod. She continued to get income from her compositions. The Centerville cottage had been built on a five-acre property Beach had bought with royalties from one song, Ecstasy, 1892, her most successful composition up until then.

From 1921 on, she spent part of each summer as a Fellow at the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire, where she composed several works and encountered other women composers and/or musicians, including Emilie Frances Bauer, Marion Bauer, Mabel Wheeler Daniels, Fannie Charles Dillon, and Ethel Glenn Hier, who “were or became long-time friends” of Beach.

In the fall of 1930, after the death of her Aunt and Cousin, she rented a studio apartment in New York and became the virtual composer-in-residence at St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church, where her music had been used during the previous 20 years in services there.

While she had agreed not to give private music lessons while married, Beach was able to work as a music educator during the early 20th century. She served as President of the Board of Councillors of the New England Conservatory of Music. Given her status and advocacy for music education, she was in high demand as a speaker and performer for various educational institutions and clubs. She also worked to create “Beach Clubs,” which helped teach and educate children in music.

Retirement and Passing
Heart disease led to Beach’s retirement in 1940, around the time of which she was honored at a testimonial dinner by 200 of her friends in New York. Beach died in New York City in 1944. Amy Beach is buried with her husband in the Forest Hills Cemetery in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts.

I could try to list the number of Amy’s compositions, but it would take a very long time. Instead, if you want to see the list, go HERE.

Writings
Beach was a musical intellectual who wrote for journals, newspapers, and other publications. She gave advice to young musicians and composers – especially female composers. From career to piano technique advice, Beach readily provided her opinions in articles such as “To the Girl who Wants to Compose” and “Emotion Versus Intellect in Music.” In 1915, she had written Music’s Ten Commandments as Given for Young Composers, which expressed many of her self-teaching principles.

Revival
Despite her fame and recognition during her lifetime, Beach was largely neglected after her death in 1944 until the late 20th century. Efforts to revive interest in Beach’s works have been largely successful during the last few decades.

Amy Beach org official website

Source: wikipedia