Amy Beach

Bold melodies, colourful orchestration and Romantic bravura are the mainstays of Amy Beach's compositions, which include a clutch of chamber works, songs, a piano concerto and a one-act opera, Cabildo, which received a posthumous premiere in 1947. Born in 1867 in New Hampshire, Amy Marcy Cheney's musicality was stifled first by her mother and then her husband—a surgeon some 24 years her senior—who limited Mrs. H.H.A. Beach's public performances, but conceded that she could compose. Her “Gaelic” Symphony, which the Boston Symphony Orchestra premiered in 1896, is acknowledged as the first symphonic work composed by an American woman. It was only after her mother and husband died in the early 20th century that Beach was free to commit to a career as a concert pianist. She undertook several European tours and exchanged the Mrs. H.H.A. for Amy in her professional endeavours. As a composer, she was recognised alongside George Chadwick, Arthur Foote, Edward MacDowell, John Knowles Paine and Horatio Parker as one of the Boston Six. “I always feel a thrill of pride myself whenever I hear a fine work by any of us,” wrote Chadwick to Beach. “You will have to be counted [as] one of the boys.”