Amy Beach, Passionate Victorian: The Life and Work of an American Composer, 1867-1944

by Adrienne Fried Block

Amy Marcy Cheney Beach (1867-1944), the most widely performed composer of her generation, was the first American woman to succeed as a creator of large-scale art music. Her "Gaelic" Symphony, given its premiere by the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1896, was the first work of its kind by an American woman to be performed by an American orchestra. Almost all of her more than 300 works were published soon after they were composed and performed, and today her music is finding new advocates and audiences for its energy, intensity, and sheer beauty. Yet, until now, no full-length critical biography of Beach's life or comprehensive critical overview of her music existed. This biography admirably fills that gap, fully examining the connections between Beach's life and work in light of social currents and dominant ideologies.

Born into a musical family in Victorian times, Amy Beach started composing as a child of four and was equally gifted as a pianist. Her talent was recognized early by Boston's leading musicians, who gave her unqualified support. Although Beach believed that the life of a professional musician was the only life for her, her parents had raised her for marriage and a career of amateur music-making. Her response to this parental (and later spousal) opposition was to find creative ways of reaching her goal without direct confrontation. Discouraged from a full-scale concert career, she instead found her métier in composition.

Success as a composer of art songs came early for indeed, her songs outsold those of her contemporaries. Nevertheless, she was determined to separate her work from the genteel parlor music women were writing in her day by creating large-scale works--a Mass, a symphony, and chamber music--that challenged the accepted notion that women were incapable of creating high art. She won the respect of colleagues and the allegiance of audiences. Many who praised her work, however, considered her an exception among women. Beach's reaction to this was to join with other women composers of serious music by promoting their works along with her own.

Adrienne Fried Block has written a biography that takes full account of issues of gender and musical modernism, considering Beach in the contexts of her time and of her composer contemporaries, both male and female. Amy Beach, Passionate Victorian will be of great interest to students and scholars of American music, and to music lovers in general.

Genres: Music, Biography, Nonfiction

448 pages, Hardcover

First published December 17, 1998

Reviews

[Emma · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating book on the life of one of the most important composers in US history! I learned a lot about not just her music but also her personality and way of living, as well as surrounding history.

[Stacy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is filled with boundless historical information. There are also great music exerpts with accompanying theory analysis throughout. I did not find it a book I could sit down and read straight through. With such vast information I had to take time to digest before continuing. Amy Beach's story is amazing and the author, Adrienne Fried Block, has composed an incredible book backed by solid research.

[Carol · Rating 5 out of 5]

This biography was very enjoyable to read - Block strikes the perfect balance between scholarly rigor and readability. I especially enjoyed her examination of how Beach's Victorian upbringing and mindset interacted with her desire for a professional music career. I also loved the way Block wrote about Beach's music, seamlessly integrating discussions of her work with the narration of her life. This is one of the best composer biographies I've ever read.

[Nate · Rating 5 out of 5]

A superb account of Amy Beach's life and career, and of why her music matters.

[Joseph · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fine biography and speaks for itself. I would like to confine myself here to a couple of ideas out of the many that came to mind as I read. One of them is that Beach took an enormous amount of flack during her life and afterward for being arrière from an avant-grade that could be punishing of dissent. The truth, as musicologist Glenn Watkins used to say, is that romanticism lingered on right up to 1949 (the year of the Strauss Four Last Songs), only to be revived about twenty years later in the form of neo-romanticism, especially with music like the Rochberg Third Quartet. Beach, therefore, had every right to proceed as she did, at least in the stylistic sense. Another thought is that Beach’s harmonic practice was not so conservative at all; in fact, it is often Reger-like in its intricacy, which is to say it very comfortably nestles right up to the Second Viennese School. For me, however, her real stylistic soulmates are more across the pond in the work of people like Arnold Bax or John Ireland, that is, composers confronted with the post-Brahmsian sound world and arriving at comparable answers to the question of how to proceed in it.

[Mark Thompson · Rating 3 out of 5]

We have spent time listening to various works by the composer Amy Beach and find her compositions of high quality and enjoyable. Since we are both musicians and with my Master Degree being in musicology, it tickles me that women composers, of such high calibre as Amy Beach, are finally getting some of their due. It was back in the early 1980s that this work was underway at the Cleveland Institute of Music and other music schools. Excellent research and lots of detailed history is explored.

[Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent biography of a wonderful American composer.