American Composer Amy Marcy Cheney, AKA Mrs. H.H.A. Beach

She was given the name Amy Marcy Cheney when she was born in 1967 to a distinguished New England family. Her musical talent was evident by the time she was two (what were YOU doing at age 2??), and she played her first recital at age seven. She performed works of Handel, Beethoven, Chopin, and herself at this recital, not the usual "Chopsticks" or "Aura Lee." Her family moved to Boston in the next year, and by her teenage years Amy was encouraged to go abroad for musical study. The family decided to keep her local and she studied with the best available teachers. She debuted in Boston in 1883 as a pianist.

One of her teachers was a physician who lectured on anatomy at Harvard, Henry Harris Aubrey Beach (1843-1910) who was also an amateur singer.
They married in 1885 even though he was 25 years her senior. He strongly encouraged her to focus her energies on musical composition rather than performing, so she did, mostly. She performed only once a year and gave the proceeds to charity.

Once married, Amy preferred to be called by the formal Mrs. H.H.A. Beach. Mrs. Beach hadn't had much counterpoint, harmony, or orchestration training as this virtuoso had focused on performing as a girl. As a young wife she had the time to teach herself these aspects of music and became a master. Her first published work was "The Rainy Day" (1883), based on a Longfellow poem.

One of Mrs. Beach most popular compositions is "Variations on Balkan Themes," Op. 60 (1906). The Rev. William W. Sleeper, a missionary and expert on Bulgaria, played for Mrs. Beach a collection of Balkan themes that he collected on his travels. He promised to send her manuscripts of them, but Mrs. Beach had a remarkable memory and transcribed them when she got home that evening. She composed the variations using one of the themes ("O Maiko Moya") prominently, and the others as contrast. Her treatment of the modal-sounding themes was not exotic; she incorporated them into traditional Romantic harmonic structures. The themes are prominent, though, and give the piece interesting flavor. Much later, in 1935, she edited the piece, and that is the version heard most.

Well, you saw this coming: Mr. H.H.A. Beach died in 1910. Mrs. Beach's mother died the year after, so Amy Beach (as she now called herself) headed for Europe to perform, compose, and promote her work. She stayed mostly in German cities and found great success there with the public and the critics. When World War I broke out she returned to the USA, living first in New York, then San Francisco, and then finally in Hillsborough, New Hampshire, in 1916. Starting in 1921, she began going to the MacDowell Colony in summers, and most of the rest of her work was composed there. She was good friends with Marian MacDowell--you remember her from my last post.

In her early days at MacDowell, Amy Beach had a "conversation" with a Hermit Thrush, the Vermont State Bird. She copied its song on the piano and it answered. This experience inspired Amy Beach's love of birdsong which she used in many future works, and two songs: "Hermit Thrush in Eve" and "Hermit Thrush in Morn," Op. 92. The Hermit Thrush became a kind of symbol of her experiences at the MacDowell Colony.

In later life, Amy Beach traveled (she was fluent in French and German), composed, wrote articles, and became active in professional musical organizations. She helped many young musicians get their careers started. She retired in 1940, and died of heart disease in 1944. She left all future royalties to her favorite spot, the MacDowell Colony.