Amy Beach Essentials

One of the first successful American female composers, Amy Beach was a prominent presence in classical music during the first half of the 20th century. She wrote a broad array of art songs and works for orchestra, chamber groups, and piano, applying her lyric touch to ideas from late European Romanticism, especially the music of Brahms and Dvořák. Her signature Gaelic Symphony, from 1894, was inspired by Irish, English, and Scottish melodies, while Variations on Balkan Themes drew from folk tunes of the titular region in a mournful response to the repression Macedonians endured following a revolt against the Ottoman rule.