Amy Beach, Passionate Victorian: The Life and Work of an American Composer, 1867-1944Oxford University Press, 17/12/1998 - 448 من الصفحات 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. |
المحتوى
3 | |
14 | |
21 | |
I | 34 |
5 Two Ways of Looking at a Marriage | 42 |
II | 54 |
7 Becoming Mistress of Her Craft | 63 |
8 Reaching Out to the World | 77 |
17 Lion of the Hour | 198 |
18 My Old New Hampshire Home | 213 |
Solitude in Silence | 221 |
20 Caring | 243 |
21 A Fascinating New York Life | 255 |
22 Beach the Modernist? | 264 |
23 Reckonings | 282 |
24 Harvest Time | 291 |
9 One of the Boys | 86 |
10 Amy Beachs Boston | 104 |
Beach Plays Beach | 112 |
Photos | 122 |
The Piano Concerto | 131 |
13 The Composers Workshop | 146 |
14 Choral Music | 159 |
15 The Chambered Nautilus | 173 |
16 Europe and a New Life | 180 |
Postlude The Legacy | 296 |
Catalog of Works | 300 |
Musics Ten Commandments as Given for Young Composers | 310 |
Abbreviations | 311 |
Notes | 313 |
Selected Bibliography | 383 |
Index | 395 |
طبعات أخرى - عرض جميع المقتطفات
عبارات ومصطلحات مألوفة
Allegro American Composer American Music Amy Beach Amy Cheney Amy Marcy Amy's April Arthur Foote artists August Beach to Arthur Beach wrote Beach's music Boston Symphony Boston Symphony Orchestra Buxbaum Chadwick Chambered Nautilus Cheney's Chicago choral chorus chromaticism Church Clara Cheney composition concert conductor Coolbrith cresc critic debut December Diary dissonance DLC-APS Dvořák EXAMPLE February Festival Gaelic gave Gena Branscombe H. H. A. Beach Hampshire Handel and Haydn Haydn Society Henry Beach Hermit Thrush Hillsborough Ibid included January June Kneisel later letter Library MacDowell Colony manuscript March Marian MacDowell Mass melodies mother movement Munich Musical America Musical Courier musicians NhU-Be November opera performance pianist Piano Concerto pieces played poem Press quintet recital San Francisco Schmidt September Shaffner singer solo soloist sonata song soprano String Quartet Symphony Orchestra theme tonality University violin voice William woman Women Composers World's Columbian Exposition York
مقاطع مشهورة
الصفحة 221 - If, eager to confuse too soon, What he has known with what may be He reads a planet out of tune For cause of his jarred harmony, — If here he venture to unroll His index of adagios, And he be given to console Humanity with what he knows, — He may by contemplation learn...
الصفحة 151 - The year's at the spring And day's at the morn; Morning's at seven; The hill-side's dew-pearled; The lark's on the wing; The snail's on the thorn: God's in his heaven — All's right with the world!
الصفحة 166 - If you will look into Roget's Bridgewater Treatise, you will find a figure of one of these shells, and a section of it. The last will show you the series of enlarging compartments successively dwelt in by the animal that inhabits the shell, which is built in a widening spiral.
الصفحة 62 - As fair art thou, my bonnie lass, So deep in luve am I, And I will luve thee still, my dear, Till a' the seas gang dry. Till a" the seas gang dry, my dear, And the rocks melt wi
الصفحة 234 - Praised be my Lord for our sister, the death of the body, from whom no man escapeth. Woe to him who dieth in mortal sin ! Blessed are they who are found walking by thy most holy will, for the second death shall have no power to do them harm. "Praise ye, and bless ye the Lord, and give thanks unto him, and serve him with great humility.
الصفحة 108 - Boston : but then he could n't do it in New York, unless he turned journalist. The people of Boston are full-blooded readers, appreciative, trained. The humblest man of letters has a position here which he does n't have in New York.
الصفحة 87 - I am now satisfied that the future music of this country must be founded upon what are called the Negro melodies.
الصفحة 166 - ... swam in an ocean of similitudes and analogies? I will not quote Cowley, or Burns, or Wordsworth just now, to show you what thoughts were suggested to them by the simplest natural objects, such as a flower or a leaf, but I will read you a few lines, if you do not object...