Amy Beach - Piano Concerto (1898)
- Duration: 37:05
- Updated: 31 Jul 2013
Painting Info - The artist is Levi Hopkins.
I. Allegro Moderato - 00:00
II. Scherzo - Vivaco - 17:49
III. Largo - 23:42
IV. Allegro Con Scloltezza - 29:03
Amy Beach was the first American woman to succeed as a composer of large-scale musical works. The most frequently performed composer of her generation, she became famous in both the United States and Europe. The two works on this disc, the Concerto in C sharp minor, Op. 45, for piano and orchestra, and the "Gaelic" Symphony in E minor, Op. 32, are among her most imposing and exciting compositions.
Amy Beach was born Amy Marcy Cheney, in West Henniker, New Hampshire, during an era when the world of work was divided into two spheres, the private and domestic for women, the public for men. Gifted with perfect pitch, total recall, inborn ability at the piano and in composition, she knew even as a young child that "no other life than that of a musician could ever have been possible for me". Yet her parents said no to a professional career for Amy. With hard work and determination she succeeded, despite the limitations imposed by family and society. Her childhood and early teens were devoted to piano studies. Her first private recital at the age of seven earned her a review in a local paper. Her mother "allowed" her to make her début when she was sixteen. After hearing her play Moscheles's Second Concerto with orchestra, a dozen reviewers predicted an outstanding career as a concert pianist. In 1885, when she made her début with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, critics called her playing of Chopin's Second Piano Concerto "perfect."
During 25 years of marriage, Amy Beach composed not only the symphony and the concerto but also songs, chamber, choral and solo piano music. Widowed at 43, she went to Germany to present her compositions and revive her career as a pianist, under the name Amy Beach. On her triumphant return to Boston in 1914, she devoted herself to concert tours and composition, completing the balance of her three hundred works, almost all published and performed. Long a hero to women composers, she died 1944 in New York City at the age of 77.
Amy Beach's Piano Concerto in C sharp Minor, Op. 45, was composed in Boston between September 1898 and September 1899, and revised in the following months. The work is scored for pairs of flutes (piccolo), oboes, clarinets (bass clarinet), and bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, solo piano, timpani, and strings. It was first performed on 7th April 1900, with the composer as soloist and the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Wilhelm Gericke, in Boston's Music Hall. In 1900 Arthur P. Schmidt Company of Boston published the concerto in a two-piano version. Beach later played the concerto with the Chicago, Philadelphia, Leipzig, Hamburg, and Berlin orchestras, among others.
With this concerto Amy Beach brought together the two halves of her musical life, composition and performance. Even before it was completed she was asked to play its première with the Boston orchestra. They knew her as a soloist, for she had played concerti by Chopin, Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Schumann and Saint-Saëns with the orchestra, and as composer of her symphony, of which they had given the first performance.
Beach wrote that the concerto's first movement, in sonata form, is "serious in character, piano and orchestra vying with each other in the development of the two principal themes". Marked Allegro moderato, the orchestra introduces the first sombre theme, followed by the piano's passionately intense cadenza. The piano introduces the second theme, based on her art song, Jeune fille et jeune fleur, Op.1, No.4, in which a father laments as he buries his young daughter. The following Scherzo is based in its entirety on a second Beach song, Empress of Night, Op.2, No.3, on a poem by her husband, and dedicated to her mother. The song's accompaniment is the source of the piano's perpetuum mobile, which all but overwhelms the orchestra's presentation of the song's vocal line. Beach wrote that the third movement, Largo, is a "dark tragic lament". It is composed out of her song, Twilight, Op.2, No.1, dedicated to her husband, who wrote the poem. It describes dusk giving way to darkness, and equates day with life, night with death. The movement is relatively short, and leads directly to the finale. Marked Allegro con scioltezza, the joyous last movement is dominated by the piano's brilliance, but pauses briefly to recall the previous movement's tragic theme.
http://wn.com/Amy_Beach_-_Piano_Concerto_(1898)
Painting Info - The artist is Levi Hopkins.
I. Allegro Moderato - 00:00
II. Scherzo - Vivaco - 17:49
III. Largo - 23:42
IV. Allegro Con Scloltezza - 29:03
Amy Beach was the first American woman to succeed as a composer of large-scale musical works. The most frequently performed composer of her generation, she became famous in both the United States and Europe. The two works on this disc, the Concerto in C sharp minor, Op. 45, for piano and orchestra, and the "Gaelic" Symphony in E minor, Op. 32, are among her most imposing and exciting compositions.
Amy Beach was born Amy Marcy Cheney, in West Henniker, New Hampshire, during an era when the world of work was divided into two spheres, the private and domestic for women, the public for men. Gifted with perfect pitch, total recall, inborn ability at the piano and in composition, she knew even as a young child that "no other life than that of a musician could ever have been possible for me". Yet her parents said no to a professional career for Amy. With hard work and determination she succeeded, despite the limitations imposed by family and society. Her childhood and early teens were devoted to piano studies. Her first private recital at the age of seven earned her a review in a local paper. Her mother "allowed" her to make her début when she was sixteen. After hearing her play Moscheles's Second Concerto with orchestra, a dozen reviewers predicted an outstanding career as a concert pianist. In 1885, when she made her début with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, critics called her playing of Chopin's Second Piano Concerto "perfect."
During 25 years of marriage, Amy Beach composed not only the symphony and the concerto but also songs, chamber, choral and solo piano music. Widowed at 43, she went to Germany to present her compositions and revive her career as a pianist, under the name Amy Beach. On her triumphant return to Boston in 1914, she devoted herself to concert tours and composition, completing the balance of her three hundred works, almost all published and performed. Long a hero to women composers, she died 1944 in New York City at the age of 77.
Amy Beach's Piano Concerto in C sharp Minor, Op. 45, was composed in Boston between September 1898 and September 1899, and revised in the following months. The work is scored for pairs of flutes (piccolo), oboes, clarinets (bass clarinet), and bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, solo piano, timpani, and strings. It was first performed on 7th April 1900, with the composer as soloist and the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Wilhelm Gericke, in Boston's Music Hall. In 1900 Arthur P. Schmidt Company of Boston published the concerto in a two-piano version. Beach later played the concerto with the Chicago, Philadelphia, Leipzig, Hamburg, and Berlin orchestras, among others.
With this concerto Amy Beach brought together the two halves of her musical life, composition and performance. Even before it was completed she was asked to play its première with the Boston orchestra. They knew her as a soloist, for she had played concerti by Chopin, Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Schumann and Saint-Saëns with the orchestra, and as composer of her symphony, of which they had given the first performance.
Beach wrote that the concerto's first movement, in sonata form, is "serious in character, piano and orchestra vying with each other in the development of the two principal themes". Marked Allegro moderato, the orchestra introduces the first sombre theme, followed by the piano's passionately intense cadenza. The piano introduces the second theme, based on her art song, Jeune fille et jeune fleur, Op.1, No.4, in which a father laments as he buries his young daughter. The following Scherzo is based in its entirety on a second Beach song, Empress of Night, Op.2, No.3, on a poem by her husband, and dedicated to her mother. The song's accompaniment is the source of the piano's perpetuum mobile, which all but overwhelms the orchestra's presentation of the song's vocal line. Beach wrote that the third movement, Largo, is a "dark tragic lament". It is composed out of her song, Twilight, Op.2, No.1, dedicated to her husband, who wrote the poem. It describes dusk giving way to darkness, and equates day with life, night with death. The movement is relatively short, and leads directly to the finale. Marked Allegro con scioltezza, the joyous last movement is dominated by the piano's brilliance, but pauses briefly to recall the previous movement's tragic theme.
- published: 31 Jul 2013
- views: 20217