Amy Beach's Symphony in e minor, Op. 32

This March, the Daily Classical Music Post will introduce you to some of the most wonderful music ever composed—and, yes, it will all be by women composers!

https://youtu.be/VmLU1CfHcJw

Douglas Shadle said in Orchestrating the Nation that most 21st-century concertgoers may never hear any of the 100+ symphonies composed by U.S. composers in the 19th century. To most classical music fans, the 19th century is all about the Russians, the Germans, perhaps some other Europeans, but U.S. music of that time is considered to be popular (e.g., Foster). The first U.S. composer most people will have heard of is Ives.

But what about the women composers of the 19th century? Well, in the 19th-century United States, the most well-known and successful woman composer of large-scale orchestral works was Amy Beach (1867–1944). As a composer, Beach was almost entirely self-taught, although she was an accomplished pianist and singer and had received training in both from a very young age.

Beach's Symphony in e minor, Op. 32 (also known as the Gaelic Symphony) premiered in Boston in 1896, and was a great success. Adrienne Fried Block says, "Amy Beach, who believed that the older the tunes, the more authentic, found her source for the symphony in a collection published in 1841 by a folk-song collector in Dublin. A lively fiddle tune appears as the closing theme of the first movement, orchestrated to recall the chanter and drone of the bagpipe. The first and second themes, however, are Beach's own, borrowed from her turbulent sea song, "Dark is the Night," op.11 no. 1. The monothematic second movement has as its theme a Gaelic love song, first presented as an oboe solo, next by the full woodwind choir, and repeated by strings. For the middle section of this movement, Beach transformed the same love song into a fast, perpetually moving, theme that recalls the scintillating scherzos of Mendelssohn. Two Irish songs, one a paean to Ireland's natural beauty, the other a lament for a dead child, are the themes of the third movement, the two melodies varied, developed, and combined. Beach wrote that the original themes she composed for the Finale are Irish in style. Their dance-like rhythms, large leaps, and soaring melodies bring this generously-proportioned symphony to an energetic close."

My classical music post for today is Amy Beach's Symphony in e minor, Op. 32.

 


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