Synopses & Reviews
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 Beach: 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.
Review
"'Decisions about risks are not technical, but value decisions.' This statement is clarified and fully explored in the four parts of this appealing volume. The cast is British, but the extensive range of backgrounds and experience ensures that both the state-of-the-art and future perspectives about
risk communication and public health are comprehensively covered. This book presents insights and experiences that should be seen as potential tactics , ingredients, or tools to work with when confronted with another crisis." -- Wim Verbeke, Department of Agricultural Economics, Ghent University,
Dissecting Room
"Anyone involved in risk communication should find this book useful. It is up to date and well referenced and indexed." -- John C. Licciardone, University of North Texas Health Science Centre
"This is a risky book. It is published at a time when public interest in public health issues is probably greater than at any time before. The book is risky because it is honest: honest about the state of knowledge about risk and risk communication across a wide range of public health issues, and
honest about the state of relationships between science, the public and those public institutions responsible for regulating risk. Risk Communication and Public Health should be required reading for policy makers and professionals responsible for public health... campaigners, academics and students
will also find it of value. An edited collection with crisp analysis of the issues." -- Steve Cropper, Keel from Amazon.co.uk
Review
"Block offers by far the most detailed and thoroughly researched account of Amy Beach's like and career to date. A chronologically structured narrative, the book draws on a wide range of materials, including books, theses, articles, letters, diaries, scrapbooks, interviews, and musical manuscripts, and contains a catalog of works and a helpful index."
Journal of the American Musicological Society. "[A] consistently interesting biography of America's first notable female composer....Fascinating and useful....If interest in Beach's music continues to grow as rapidly as it has in the last few years, there will be time and opportunity to assess it, and Block's study will be a valuable aid in making a sound assessment possible."--The New York Times Book Review
"In her thoroughly researched and eminently readable study, Ms. Block presents Beach as not merely a victim of male chauvinism but also a many-sided historical figure: a dutiful daughter and wife who happened to be aflame with musical ideas and found ways to let people know it."--David Wright, The New York Times
"Block has done a great service by providing the first full-length critical biography of this talented, underappreciated composer....Pitched to the lay reader, her book includes 22 music examples accompanied by simple, illuminating analyses. An important work not only for general collections and music libraries but also for women's studies collections; highly recommended."--Library Journal
"'Passion' is at the core of this biography. An image of starched lace collars has encased Amy Beach. But Adrienne Fried Block tosses it aside to reveal a woman of extraordinary talent and rigorous discipline. Thoroughly researched and absorbingly told, this book represents a landmark in gaining a balanced portrait of American musical history."--Carol J. Oja, Margaret and David Bottoms Professor of Music and American Studies, College of William and Mary
"From child prodigy to queen of American 'woman composers'; demeaned symbol of the genteel tradition; rediscovered heroine for musical feminists; and now--the most widely performed and celebrated composer of the late nineteenth century New England school: Amy Beach richly deserves the distinguished and compelling biography Adrienne Fried Block has given us. Perhaps taking her cue from Beach's musical personality, the author has written a passionate, scrupulously crafted biography of an important American musical pioneer."--Judith Tick, Northeastern University, author of Ruth Crawford Seeger: A Composer's Search for American Music
Review
"A consistently interesting biography of America's first notable female composer....Fascinating."--The New York Times Book Review
"[This is a] brilliant, engaging biography....Block is the ideal voice for Amy Beach, for she writes as Beach composed: lyrically, sensitively, powerfully, passionately, and convincingly."--Joanne Polk, Professor and Director of Chamber Music and Ensembles at the Manhattan School of Music (recorded the complete solo music of Amy Beach for Arabesque Recordings)
"At last! A definitive study-in-the-round of composer Amy Beach....Confirming Beach's prodigious musical gifts, this biography, an informed and revelatory feminist study...appears fortuitously at a time when Beach's music, for long a victim of the anti-Romantic bias of American musical modernism, is coming to be recognized for its integrity and expressive range." --H. Wiley Hitchcock, Distinguished Professor of Music Emeritus, City University of New York.
"In her thoroughly researched and eminently readable study, Ms. Block presents Beach as not merely a victim of male chauvinism but also a many-sided historical figure: a dutiful daughter and wife who happened to be aflame with musical ideas and found ways to let people know it."--David Wright, The New York Times
"With meticulous documentation, musicologist Block tells Beach's story....Block carefully details Beach's musical prowess, her keen ambition, the advantages of her Boston surroundings, and a wealth of sheer luck to make a convincing case for Beach the 'pathfinder and model'"--National Women's Association Journal
Description
Includes bibliographical references and index. Includes index.
About the Author
Adrienne Fried Block has long been active as a speaker and writer on women and music.
Women in American Music: A Bibliography of Music and Literature (1979), which she co-edited and compiled, remains a standard reference for the topic. She holds a Ph.D. in Musicology from City University of New York, in which she has taught and where she is currently Co-Director of the Project for the Study of Women in Music.
Table of Contents
1. A Prodigy's New England Upbringing
2. The Cheneys and the Marcys
3. A Prodigy Despite Her Mother
4. The Making of a Composer: I
5. Two Ways of Looking at a Marriage
6. The Making of a Composer: II
7. Becoming Mistress of Her Craft
8. Reaching Out to the World
9. "One of the Boys"
10. Amy Beach's Boston
11. The Composer at the Keyboard: Beach Plays Beach
12. "A Veritable Autobiography"?: The Piano Concerto
13. The Composer's Workshop
14. Choral Music
15. The Chambered Nautilus
16. Europe and a New Life
17. "Lion of the Hour"
18. My Old New Hampshire House
19. At the MacDowell Colony: "Solitude in Silence"
20. Caring
21. A Fascinating New York Life
22. Beach the Modernist?
23. Reckonings
24. Harvest Time
Postlude: The Legacy
Appendix: Catalog of Works
Music's Ten Commandments as Given for Young Composers