Amy Cheney and Mrs. Beach

Synopsis

Amy Marcy Cheney Beach was born in Henniker, New Hampshire, on today’s date in 1867. Amy Beach — or, Mrs. H.H.A. Beach, as she was also called — was one of America’s first major women composers and a gifted concert pianist to boot

We probably have Mr. Beach to thank for Amy’s decision to devote herself more to composition than performance. In the spring of 1885, at 18, she debuted as a soloist with the Boston Symphony, and it seemed a major concert career was in the offing. But later that same year, she married Dr. Henry Harris Aubrey Beach, a prominent New England physician. In respect to his wishes and the custom of the day for women in high society, Mrs. H.H.A. Beach curtailed her concert career and concentrated instead on writing music. Her first published work was a setting of a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, a long-time family friend.

Only after her husband’s death in 1911, did Amy revive her career as a concert pianist with a concert tour throughout Germany, returning to America at the outbreak of World War I. In her later years, she acted as mentor to a whole new generation of American women pursuing careers in music. She died in New York in 1944.

Music Played in Today's Program

Amy Beach (1867-1944): Piano Concerto; Joanne Polk, piano; English Chamber Orchestra; Paul Goodwin, conductor; Arabesque 6738

On This Day

Births

• 1735 - German composer Johann Christian Bach, the 11th and youngest surviving son of J.S. Bach, in Leipzig. In 1762 he moved to England, where he became famous as “The London Bach.”

• 1791 - German composer Giacomo Meyerbeer (born Jakob Liebmann Beer), in Berlin

• 1867 - American pianist and composer Amy Marcey Cheney (a.k.a. Mrs. H.H.A. Beach), in Henniker, New Hampshire

• 1912 - American composer John Cage, in Los Angeles

Deaths

• 1803 - French composer François Devienne, 44, at an insane asylum in Charenton

Premieres

• 1733 - Pergolesi: opera La Serva Padrona (The Maid as Mistress), in Naples at the Teatro San Bartolomeo

• 1840 - Verdi: opera Un Giorno di Regno (King for a Day), in Milan at the Teatro alla Scala

• 1857 - Liszt: A Faust Symphony, in Weimar, conducted by the composer

• 1913 - Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 2 (first version), in Pavlovsk, with the composer as soloist (Julian date: August 23). This version was lost in a fire during the 1917 Russian Revolution, and the composer reconstructed the work from his sketches. He reintroduced the second version of this concerto in Paris on May 8, 1924, at a concert conducted by Serge Koussevitzky.

• 1927 - Gershwin: musical Strike Up the Band, at the Shubert Theater in Philadelphia. This show included the classic Gershwin songs “Strike Up the Band” and “The Man I Love.”

• 1932 - Poulenc: Concerto for Two Pianos, at the Venice Festival, with the composer and Jacques Février as soloists

• 1942 - Prokofiev: String Quartet No. 2, in Moscow, by the Beethoven Quartet. The start of the performance was delayed due to a German air raid.

• 1950 - Arthur Benjamin: Piano Concerto, in Sydney, Australia, with the composer as soloist

• 1980 - Glass: opera Satyagraha, by the Netherlands Opera in Rotterdam, Christopher Keene conducting

• 2000 - Osvaldo Golijov: Las Pasión Según San Marcos (St. Mark Passion) in Stuttgart, Germany, by the orchestra of International Bach Academy and the Schola Cantorum de Caracas, Maria Guinand, conducting. This work was one of four passion settings commissioned by the International Bach Academy to honor the 250th anniversary of Bach's death in the year 2000 (see also: Aug. 28, Sept. 1, 8).

Others

• 1964 - The La Scala Opera begins a month-long residency at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow with a performance of Puccini’s Turandot. La Scala is the first European opera company to visit the Soviet Union.