About this Piece

Amy Beach (née Cheney) was born in Henniker, NH. She studied piano with several well-known teachers, including Ernst Perabo and Carl Baermann, but with regard to composition she was almost entirely self-taught. She made her concert debut at the age of 16. Two years later, she married Dr. Henry Harris Aubrey Beach, a physician 24 years her senior. During her lifetime, she was known by neither her maiden name nor her own given name but by the moniker “Mrs. H.H.A. Beach.” As even the most celebrated actresses in Britain and America were known by their husband’s names, so were her compositions credited to Mrs. H.H.A. Beach. Only in these more egalitarian times have her accomplishments become known under her own name, Amy Beach. For social propriety’s sake within Boston’s upper crust, her husband insisted that she limit her concert performances to one per year. It was only after his death in 1910 that she embarked on a concert tour of both Europe and America. She wrote in most genres and was the first American woman to write and publish a symphony, the “Gaelic.” Ultimately, she was considered one of America’s leading composers, writing in a late-Romantic idiom that is tonally more advanced than her contemporaries such as Arthur Foote and George Chadwick.

Her Piano Quintet in F-sharp minor (1908) marked a milestone in American chamber literature and represented the vanguard of such works. It is in three movements beginning with a dark, brooding Adagio. The movement’s Allegro begins with a sad melody given out by the first violin, followed by a brief Schubertian episode before the music reverts to the introductory theme, remaining dark and mysterious. The middle Adagio espressivo opens softly with a lovely, highly romantic melody. Though the music never rises to a dramatic climax and stays relatively soft dynamically, it nonetheless burns with tremendous emotional intensity. The finale, Allegro agitato, explodes out of the gate with incredible force and forward motion. A second, more lyrical theme relieves the feverish intensity, but the reintroduction of the main subject brings many further theatrical turns in its wake. ―Program note by Edition Silvertrust. Used by permission.