Analysis Amy Beach

Analysis of Amy Cheney Beach's
Gaelic Symphony, Op. 32
Kathryn Amelia Kuby, D.M.A.
University of Connecticut, 2011
Amy Marcy Cheney Beach (1867-1944) was a highly gifted musical prodigy who
was primarily a self-taught composer. She was known as a virtuoso pianist who had
impeccable memory and was regarded as being the most talented out of all of her
colleagues in the Second New England School of Composition.
Beach married Henry Harris Aubrey Beach in 1885. Mr. Beach required that
Amy abandon her concert career and focus on composing at home. When Mr. Beach
died in 1910, Beach traveled to Europe and chose the life of a touring concert artist, as
well as a promoter of her compositions.
The premiere of the Gaelic Symphony took place on October 30, 1896, with Emil
Paur conducting the Boston Symphony Orchestra in Boston. The premiere of Beach's
symphony established her as a major American composer. Subsequently, this work was
the most successful American symphony by any composer of Mrs. Beach's generation.
Beach was the first American woman to write in the larger forms with great success, and
the Gaelic Symphony is the first symphony, or any type of symphonic work, ever to be
composed by an American woman. It is also the first symphony composed by an
American woman to be performed anywhere in the world. Her symphony was heavily
Kathryn Amelia Kuby - University of Connecticut, 2011
influenced by Dvorak's Symphony No. 9 and is significant because it was the first
symphony by an American composer to quote folk songs as thematic material.
Beach received mainly positive responses to her Gaelic Symphony. Despite the
fact that she was a woman in a man's profession and composing in a male-dominated
genre, she proved that a woman can be just as talented and successful as any male
composer. The Gaelic Symphony is a pristine example of a late-romantic symphony that
is able to hold its ground next to the other symphonies written by male composer of its
time. This dissertation is primarily historical in nature, with some analysis of thematic
material, key areas, form, metronome markings, instrumentation, use of folk songs, and
recordings of the work.

Kathryn Amelia Kuby
B.M., Belmont University, 1998
M.M., University of North Texas, 2002
A Dissertation
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree of
Doctorate of Musical Arts
at the
University of Connecticut
2011
UMI Number: 3492164
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Copyright by
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2011
APPROVAL PAGE
Doctor of Musical Arts Dissertation
Presented by
Kathryn Amelia Kuby, B.M., M.M.
Major Advisor ^\-?/A-£o ^Û, ^ T >
Theodore Arm
Associate Advisor
lain Frogley
Associate Advisor I^TfC jVWy^
Peter Kamins
University of Connecticut
2011
ii
Dedicated to
and
Inspired by
My Mother
m
Table of Contents
Dedication iii
Table of Contents iv
Chapter 1: Introduction 1
Chapter 2: Beach as a Composer 9
Chapter 3: Analysis of Gaelic Symphony 23
Chapter 4: Reception and Gender 70
Chapter 5: Conclusion 86
Table 1.1: Analysis of Gaelic Symphony 90
Table 1.2: Comparison of Recordings 96
Appendix 1: Beach's Analysis of Gaelic Symphony 99
Appendix 2: Music's Ten Commandments 103
Bibliography 104
iv
Chapter 1: Introduction
Amy Cheney Beach (1867 -1944) was the first American woman to be successful
as a composer of large-scale art music. During her lifetime she was celebrated as the
foremost woman composer in America.' She was born Amy Marcy Cheney in Henniker,
New Hampshire.2 Considered a musical prodigy, Beach was able to sing a large
repertoire of songs as early as age two. At the same age she could improvise an alto line
of music to her mother's soprano line. She also showed evidence of having perfect pitch,
in addition to associating colors to specific keys. Her mother, Clara Cheney, would not
let her play the piano until age four. At that time she began composing; she could
duplicate what she heard her mother play, leaving out the notes that her fingers could not
reach.3 Some of her first compositions were conceived on a visit to the country: she
composed three waltzes mentally in her head and then played them on the piano after
returning home.4 Among her early musical accomplishments was her ability to sing forty
melodies accurately and always in the same key.5 From a very young age Amy Beach
was already enthused and fascinated by music and wanted to experience it as much as she
was able.
'Adrienne Fried Block, "Amy Marcy Beach," in Grove Music Online, Oxford Music Online,
http://www.grovemusic.com (or
http://vvvv\v.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/miisic/02409, edited by S. Sadie,
(2001), accessed June 6, 2007.
2
Block, Grove Music Online.
3
Block, Grove Music Online; Sylvia Glickman and Martha Furman Schleifer, eds. From Convent
to Concert Hall: A Guide to Women Composers (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press,
2003), 181; and Christine Ammer, 1980. Unsung: A History of Women in American Music, No.
14, Contributions in Women 's Studies (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1980), 86.
4
Glickman and Schleifer, From Convent to Concert Hall, 181.
5
1
In 1875 the Cheneys moved to Boston.6 Beach's parents were advised to enter
her in a European conservatory, but instead, they chose local piano teachers in Boston,
such as Ernst Perabo and Carl Baermann. She studied composition with Wilhelm
Gericke and Junius W. Hill.7 In 1883, at age sixteen Beach made her piano debut playing
Moscheles Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, for
which she earned excellent reviews. Boston music critics believed that her musicianship
and technique were outstanding. During her career as a concert pianist she had several
appearances with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. As a pianist, Beach was known as a
virtuoso who had impeccable memory.9 It is remarkable that a young woman was so
successful at such a young age, especially in the late nineteenth-century.
Unlike her mother, Beach had a talent that required that music be the center of her
life. Beach believed confidently that she could manage both performing and composing
and that she did not need to choose between either of them. Her mother had other plans
for Beach. She wanted Beach to marry and to keep her music private. Just like her
mother, Beach was to "place a man, not music, at the center of her life and take her place
in the patriarchal succession."10 In addition, Beach was to do this willingly because her
parents demanded that she should not show any anger towards them.11 Women in
Beach's time did not always have a choice in how to live their lives, or have any control

8
Glickman and Schleifer, From Convent to Concert Hall, 181; and Block, Grove Music Online.
Walter S. Jenkins, The Remarkable Mrs. Beach, American Composer: A Biographical Account
Based on Her Diaries, Letters, Newspaper Clippings, and Personal Reminiscences, No. 13,
Detroit Monographs in Musicology/Studies in Music, ed. John H. Baron (Warren, Michigan:
Harmonie Park Press, 1994), 48-55; and Block, Grove Music Online.
l0
Adrienne Fried Block, "The Child is the Mother of the Woman: Amy Beach's
New England Upbringing," in Cecilia Reclaimed: Feminist Perspectives Gender on Music,
edited by Susan C. Cook and Judy S. Tsou (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994), 107-133.
"Block, The Child is the Mother of the Woman, 125.
2
over their future. Beach is a prime example of this reality typical in the late nineteenth-
century.
Beach married widower Henry Harris Aubrey Beach on December 2, 1885. He
was a prominent Boston surgeon, an amateur singer, and a man twenty-five years older
than Amy.12 There is no direct evidence of an arranged marriage, although the difference
in the couple's ages would suggest such. When Mr. Beach entered her life Amy accepted
his decisions as well. Dr. Beach fit into Clara Cheney's plan for Amy's life.13 Consistent
with the Victorian gender system, Mrs. Cheney believed that Amy should be submissive
to her husband.14 Amy followed this paradigm as Dr. Beach's wife.
The marriage agreement dictated that Amy abandon her concert career, and that
she play only at annual charity recitals in Boston and to introduce her own
compositions.15 Because Dr. Beach strongly believed that a husband should provide for
his wife financially, he required that she donate all of her income that was earned during
their marriage to charitable causes.16 In place of performing she was to focus on
composing, which was something that she could do at home. This change in her life
made Amy now a '"a musician, not a prodigy.'" Mrs. Cheney reveled in her success of
"getting the genie back in the bottle;" she did not want Amy to be a performer, but
instead, a dutiful wife to Dr. Beach.18
12
Glickman and Schleifer, From Convent to Concert Hall, 182; and Block, The Child is the
Mother of the Woman, 125.
l3
Block, The Child is the Mother of the Woman, 125.
14
15
Block, The Child is the Mother of the Woman, 125; Glickman and Schleifer, From Convent to
Concert Hall, 182; and Block, Grove Music Online.
"Amy Marcy Cheney Beach, Piano Music, with a new introduction by Sylvia Glickman (New
York: Da Capo Press, 1982), ii.
17
,8
3
Dr. Beach helped to bring the genie back out. He wanted to support her creative
work. He was a man of charm, enjoyed the finer things in life, and was gifted in music as
well as in medicine. Over the next twenty-five years Beach composed numerous
compositions in the Romantic style that gave her a reputation as one of America's most
90
revered composers. But nevertheless, the desire to pursue a concert career never left
Beach.
Beach's married life ended in 1910 when her husband died on June 28. Seven
months later her mother died, on February 18, 1911. Following their deaths, Beach
finally had the autonomy and freedom that she did not have for forty-three years. She
99
traveled to Europe with her long-time friend, Amy Brigham, and subsequently made
several more trips there. This only reinforced her independence as a woman composer of
9^
the early twentieth century. Although she was alone and grieving, she chose the life of
a touring concert artist. In addition to performing, she also promoted her own
compositions. This new life gave her great fulfillment and happiness. 4 Beach was
finally free to be a performer and live the life she chose. She was a true performer at
-ye
heart and she loved her audiences. Despite her husband's death Beach signed all her
music "Mrs. H. H. A. Beach" throughout her entire life.26

20
Glickman and Schleifer, From Convent to Concert Hall, 182; and
Adrienne Fried Block, assisted by Nancy Stewart, "Women in American Music 1800-1918," in
Women and Music: A History, edited by Karin Pendle (Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
1991).
2
'Block, The Child is the Mother of the Woman, 126; and Block, Grove Music Online.
Jenkins, The Remarkable Mrs. Beach, 71.
23
Jenkins, The Remarkable Mrs. Beach, 37-47.
~ Block, The Child is the Mother of the Woman, 126; and Block, Grove Music Online.
25
Block, The Child is the Mother of the Woman, 125-126.
26
Brown, Jeanell Wise. Amy Beach and Her Chamber Music: Biography, Documents, Style, No.
16, Composers of North America (Metuchen, New Jersey: The Scarecrow Press, 1994), 31;
Adrienne Fried Block, How to Write an American Symphony: Amy Beach and the Birth of
4
Although Beach wrote several works for voice and orchestra or solo instrument
and orchestra, there are only two complete, purely orchestral works in her musical output.
The first work, Bal Masque (1894A originally one of her piano works, was later arranged
by Beach for orchestra and played by several symphony orchestras in her day. 27 The
second is Beach's only symphony, the Gaelic Symphony (1896,). Both of these works are
excellent examples of her early period of musical composition.
The premiere of the Gaelic Symphony took place on October 30, 1896, with Emil
Paur conducting the Boston Symphony Orchestra in Boston's Music Hall. The work
9Q
was dedicated to its premiere conductor. In the next two years the Boston Symphony
gave four more performances of Beach's symphony. In her lifetime it enjoyed many
performances by over sixteen orchestras both in the United States and in Europe. 30 The
score was published in Leipzig in 1897 by the Boston-based publisher, Arthur P.
Schmidt. 31 Written for full orchestra it is scored for: 2 flutes, piccolo, 2 oboes, English
'Gaelic' Symphony, http://www.americancomposers.org/beach_article.htm. (1999), accessed

August 20, 2008; and Block and Stewart, Women in American Music, 72.
27
Jenkins, The Remarkable Mrs. Beach, 37-47; and Block, Amy Beach: Passionate Victorian, 86-
103.
28
Adrienne Fried Block, Liner Notes to Amy Beach's Symphony in E Minor ("Gaelic"), Op.32.
Nashville Symphony Orchestra, Kenneth Schermerhorn, cond., Naxos 8.559139, (2003),
Compact Disc; and Ammer, Unsung, 79.
Adrienne Fried Block, Amy Beach: Passionate Victorian: The Life and Work of an American
Composer 1867-1944 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 86-103; Jenkins, The
Remarkable Mrs. Beach, 100.
30
Adrienne Fried Block, Liner Notes to Amy Beach's Symphony in E Minor ("Gaelic"), Op. 32.
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Karl Krueger, cond., Society for the Preservation of American
Music, MIA 139, reissue Our Musical Past, OMP-105, Vol. 4, (1989) Compact Disc; Block, Amy
Beach: Passionate Victorian, 86-103; Jenkins, The Remarkable Mrs. Beach, 37-47; and Block,
Liner Notes, Naxos.
31
Amy Beach, Symphony in E minor, Op. 32 "Gaelic" (1896) (Edwardsville, Illinois:
Serenissima, Music Inc., 2004), title page; Block, Amy Beach: Passionate Victorian, 86-103; and
Block, Liner Notes, Naxos.
5
horn, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 2 trombones, bass
trombone, tuba, triangle, tympani, and strings.32
Beach began writing the Gaelic Symphony in January 1894, at age 27, and
completed it over two years later. At this point in time Beach had studied and
reconstructed from memory many of the orchestral works performed by the Boston
Symphony Orchestra. Although before the twentieth century, the mass was the testing
ground for composers, now it was the symphony. Beach was faced with the widespread
assumption that women were not able to deal with '"the theoretical intricacies, the logical
sequences, and the mathematical problems which are the foundation principles of music'"
that were believed to be necessary for the creation of high art.34 In order for Beach to be
"one of the boys" she needed to prove herself.35 Beach possessed androgynous
intellectual and emotional qualities therefore she surpassed the "feminine" restrictions
and was fully prepared for the task. However, her socialization as a girl and woman did
not prepare her for the work. In Beach's time a symphony was thought to be the highest
level of "'man-tone'" music. Composing a symphony meant that a conductor and
musicians (most of which were male at the time) take directions from the composer.37 It
was an enormous task in Beach's time for a woman to attempt to write a symphony.
Beach was bold to undertake this mission.
Beach, Symphony in E minor, Op. 32 "Gaelic" (1896) (score); and Block, Liner Notes.
Block, Amy Beach: Passionate Victorian, 86; and Block, Liner Notes, Naxos.
34
Block, Amy Beach: Passionate Victorian, 86; George P. Upton, Woman in Music (Boston: J.
R.Osgood, 1880), 27.
35
Block, Amy Beach: Passionate Victorian, 86.
36
Block, Amy Beach: Passionate Victorian, 86; The term man-tone, is in Rupert Hughes, "Music
in America IX-The Women Composers," Godey 's Book (January 1896), 30, as follows: "what
[women] write in man-tone is sometimes surprisingly strong."
37
6
The premiere of Beach's Gaelic Symphony established Beach as a major
American composer. Subsequently, this work was the most successful American
TO .
symphony by any composer of Mrs. Beach's generation. Beach was the first Amencan
woman to write in the larger forms with great success. The Gaelic Symphony is the first
symphony to be composed by an American woman, and the first such work to be
performed by an American orchestra. 40 It is also the first symphony composed by an
American woman to be performed anywhere in the world. 41 Although it has been
speculated that Beach was the highest-paid songwriter in America, it was the Gaelic
Symphony and the Mass in E-flat that guaranteed her place in America's musical
history. 42
The Gaelic Symphony is also significant because it was the first symphony by an
American composer to quote folk songs as thematic material. This work helped to
position Beach in the nationalist movement of music, which in America was a strong
force from the mid-1890s to the 1950s. This movement was characterized by the
evocation of folk and popular music of various native and immigrant groups in the United
' Jenkins, The Remarkable Mrs. Beach, 37.

39
Beach, Piano Music (1982), iii.
40
Ammer, Unsung, 79, 86, 105; Alice Mary Smith (1839-84), an English composer, had written a
symphony, as well as four orchestral overtures, five cantatas, a clarinet concerto, and many
smaller works. Louis Farrenc (1804-75) of France wrote mostly keyboard and chamber music
but also produced three symphonies and two overtures, and Augusta Holmes (1847-1903), also
French, wrote several large orchestral works but no symphony as such. As previously stated,
Beach's Gaelic Symphony was the first symphony written by an American woman, but it was not
the first orchestral work written by a woman performed by the Boston symphony. That credit is
given to Margaret Ruthven Lang, with her Dramatic Overture, Op. 12. It was performed under
Arthur Nikisch in 1893. Later that year her Witchis overture was performed in Chicago by
Theodore Thomas's orchestra.
41
Adrienne Fried Block and Carol Neuls-Bates, compilers and eds., Women in American Music:
A Bibliography of Music and Literature (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1979); and
Ammer, Unsung, 79.
42
Brown, Amy Beach and Her Chamber Music, 4, 353.
7
States. There are also some similarities between the Gaelic Symphony and Dvorak's
Symphony No. 9 that will explored in this study.
The Gaelic Symphony is an ambitious and extended work, and is characteristic of
its time in several other ways. This is true in both the assimilation of folk elements and
in the overall harmonic language, which directly derived from Brahms and Wagner.44
That said, it also exhibits specific stylistic traits that are particular to Beach, most notably
flowing melodies, characteristic of all of her vocal and instrumental works, and the
unrelenting use of chromaticism. The work also exhibits some examples of Beach's
persistent "tendency toward overelaboration," but it also shows technical mastery that is
surprising for a self-taught composer.45
This investigation of the Gaelic Symphony will be primarily historical in nature,
with some analysis of thematic material, key areas, form, metronome markings,
instrumentation, use of folk songs, and recordings of the work. The historical portion
will focus on three areas: reception, influences, and gender. The reception section will
explore how Beach's music was received, both in the United States and in Europe. In
terms of gender, a number of questions will be explored, in particular: to what degree did
various reviewers deal with the gender issue, and how did it affect their interpretation of
the work?
Block and Neuls-Bates, Women in American Music, 220; and Block and Stewart, Women in
American Music, 169.
44
Ammer, Unsung, 79.
45
Ammer, Unsung, 79.
8
Chapter 2: Beach as a Composer
Amy Beach's musical education was not the same as the male composers of her
time. Beach's first composition teacher in Boston, Wilhelm Gericke , directed Beach in
independent study of the works of the master composers. More formally, she studied
harmony and counterpoint with Junius W. Hill from 1881 to 1882. At this point her
formal training as a composer and pianist ended.
Beach's parents took Gericke's advice that the fifteen-year old should teach
herself composition, orchestration, and fugue technique by studying the masters of
composition. This advice was a reflection of the dominant belief that women could not
create music of true worth and value. But despite the culture's gender biases, Beach
taught herself composition and succeeded well beyond anyone's expectation. In this
self-instruction she learned form and orchestration by translating the treatises of Hector
Berlioz and Francois-Auguste Gevaert from French to English.4 Beach continued to
study theory texts and orchestral scores on her own. One of the ways that she studied
counterpoint was by writing out sections of The Well-Tempered Clavier in order to
memorize them.5 Despite the fact that Beach was denied advanced training, she was
driven and gifted and in turn pursued technical mastery. Beach's compositions were her
own, especially because she was her own teacher. After she completed them she had the
1
Wilhelm Gericke-Austrian conductor
2
Block, Grove Music Online; Beach, Music for Piano, I; Block, Amy Beach: Passionate
Victorian, 36; and Glickman and Schleifer, From Convent to Concert Hall, 181.
3
Block, Liner Notes, Our Musical Past; Block, Liner Notes, Naxos; and Block, Grove Music
Online.
4
Block, Grove Music Online; and Beach, Piano Music (1982), ii.
5
Beach, Piano Music, (1982), ii.
9
courage to put her name on them and send them out into the world.6 Even though her
formal training as a pianist had ended previously, during this time her development as a
pianist was monitored by William Mason, Percy Goetschius, H. W. Longfellow, Oliver
Wendell Holmes, and Henry Harris Aubrey Beach.7
Over her lifetime Beach wrote over 300 compositions, almost all of which have
now been published, and performed from the United States to Australia. She became the
"most frequently performed American composer of her generation." Many of Beach's
works have returned to the concert stage and about two-thirds of them have been
recorded.9 Her career was supported by organizations such as the Boston Handel and
Haydn Society and the Kneisel Quartet.10
Beach was part of Boston's Second New England School of Composition, which
was America's first school of art music.11 This group included George Chadwick,
Horatio Parker, Edward MacDowell and Arthur Foote, and its members generally
avoided new compositional trends such as Impressionism and atonality. Although
Beach was the youngest member of the group, her colleagues believed that she was the
most talented and gifted composer in the school.
6
Block, Grove Music Online; Block, Amy Beach: Passionate Victorian, 78, 289; and Ammer,
Unsung, 86.
7
8
Amy Beach, Piano Music, with an introduction by Adrienne Fried Block (New York: Dover
Publications, 2001), iv.
9
10
Beach, Piano Music (2001), iv.
"Block, How to Write an American Symphony.
l2
Brown, Amy Beach and Her Chamber Music, 127-128.
13
Block and Stewart, Women in American Music.
10
Beach's first published compositions were a group of songs that she wrote in
1884.14 But in 1888 Beach turned to writing instrumental works, 15 and in 1890 began to
devote more time to composition. This was the beginning of a prolific decade; Beach
was capable of producing large-scale works in a short amount of time16 and with the
exception of opera, she wrote in all forms during this period. Her first large-scale work
was her Mass in E-flat, Op.5, for vocal soloists, chorus and orchestra, which premiered in
1892. This work was the first work by a woman composer to be performed by the
17
Handel and Haydn Society of Boston. By 1896 she had also written more than sixty
1 o
shorter works for piano, voice or violin, as well as several cantatas. Beach's main
works during the period of 1885-1910 include: the Mass in Eb, Op. 5, Eilende Wolken,
Op. 18, the Symphony, Op. 32, and the Piano Concerto, Op. 45. Ensembles such as the
Boston Handel and Haydn Society, the Symphony Society of New York, and the Boston
Symphony Orchestra premiered these works.19
Among her commissioned works are her Festival Jubilate, Op. 17 (for chorus and
orchestra), written for the dedication of the Women's Building of the World's Columbian
Exposition in Chicago (1893), and the Song of Welcome, Op. 42 for the Trans-Mississippi
Exposition in Omaha (1898). In addition to those works, the Panama Hymn, Op. 74 was
written for the international Panama Pacific Exposition in San Francisco (1915) and the
l4
Beach, Piano Music (1982), ii.
Brown, Amy Beach and Her Chamber Music, 141.
l6
Block, Amy Beach: Passionate Victorian, 301-305; and Block, Grove Music Online.
l7
Block, Amy Beach: Passionate Victorian, 301-305; Beach, Piano Music (1982), ii; and Beach,
Piano Music (2001), iv.
18
Ammer, Unsung, 78.
l9
11
Theme and Variations for Flute and String Quartet Op. 80 was composed for the San
Francisco Chamber Music Society.20 These are only a small part of her large oeuvre.
Although Beach was first known as a composer of art songs, it was her mass and
symphony that won her the acceptance of her male Boston colleagues, and then a national
and international reputation. In addition to her songs, her symphony became one of her
most popular works, enjoying dozens of performances by leading orchestras.21
In Beach's time, a symphony was considered the "ultimate in 'man-tone'

99
music." The rehearsing and performing of a symphony required that a conductor, and
the musicians of the orchestra, take directions from the composer, and in Beach's case
that meant from a woman."23
When Beach was looking for role models to write her symphony, she could not
find any women symphonists. Ironically, the information that she needed while she was
composing the "Gaelic" became available after its premiere. When the critic Philip Hale
wrote his review of the work he mentioned several women who had composed
symphonies. Some of these names include: Alice May Meadows White (1839-1884) of
England, Louise Farrenc (1804-1875) of France, and two Germans, Emilie Mayer (1821-
1883) and Aline Hundt (1848-1873). Because Beach did not have knowledge of these
" Block, Grove Music Online; and Beach, Piano Music (1982), ii.
21
Block, Grove Music Online; and Block and Stewart Women and Music, 169.
22
Block, Amy Beach: Passionate Victorian, 86; The term man-tone, is in Rupert Hughes, "Music
in America IX-The Women Composers," Godey 's Book (January 1896), 30, as follows: "what
[women] write in man-tone is sometimes surprisingly strong."
2i
B\ock, Amy Beach: Passionate Victorian, 86.
12
compositions while she was writing her symphony, she believed that she was navigating
unexplored territory.
Many composers influenced Beach's compositional style. Her main influences
were Brahms, Rachmaninoff, MacDowell, and Liszt. Jeanell Wise Brown states that her
strongest influence was Liszt.25 There are several opinions about her compositional style.
One author states that Beach's "romanticism is youthful rather than Mahlerian; it conveys
simple idealism rather than the complex, ambiguous Weltschmerz of an old and dying
society." Her style has been categorized by most writers as '"post-romantic"' and
compared to that of Wagner, or '"romantic"' in the style of Rachmaninoff and Brahms.27
Another author states that her melodies are "Puccini-like" and show the influence of Liszt
and the romanticism of the German school.28 Brown also states that Beach was
influenced by Berlioz's harmonies.29 One present-day author suggests that all of Beach's
instrumental works, as well as her early works, reflect Wagner and Brahms, but that in
her later works she echoed the styles of Debussy, Reger, and MacDowell.30 Beach
cannot be stylistically compared with other American women composers like Ruth
Crawford Seeger, who was an innovator. According to Brown, Beach represents the end
of romanticism in the United States.31
Block, Amy Beach: Passionate Victorian, 87; Philip Hale, "With Musicians: Women in the
List of Symphony Makers," Boston Journal (November 4, 1896), (Amy Beach, Scrapbook, 1883-
1914, University of New Hampshire, Dimond Library, Beach Collection 51, 101).
25
26
Brown, Amy Beach and Her Chamber Music, xxxi.
28
" Brown, Amy Beach and Her Chamber Music, 147.
30
Ammer, Unsung, 79.
13
Beach's self-taught education limited her to certain styles of writing. Because she
studied multiple treatises by European theorists on the subjects of harmony and
orchestration, this determined the general texture of almost all of her music. Her early
works kept with the established Romantic style. These works featured "lush, virtuosic
-3-5
textures for piano and passionate melodic lines." Despite the clear influence of major
romantic composers, Block argues that Beach's works are nevertheless marked by her
individuality, noting the "richness of her harmonic sense, the daring of her tonal language
beginning with Opus 1, and the lyricism of her melodies."34 In the first half of her
compositional life, she was placed in the mainstream of music because of her reference to
the past.35
After that her experimentations in modern styles created some of her most
distinctive and original compositions. As her works matured the melodies become
more elongated and there was more irregular phrasing than in her early works. Beach's
music cannot easily be divided into stylistic periods. However, one can see a maturity in
her writing evidenced in the larger forms, and in chamber music. In contrast, her songs
never changed their character or developed into a more contemporary style.38 Beach's
mature style contains the following characteristics: "use of long-held and overlapping
appoggiaturas," "increasing chromaticism," seventh and augmented-sixth chords,
modulations by 3rds, and "avoidance of the dominant." All of these traits show
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
14
evidence of her devotion to the late Romantics, as well as Scottish and Irish folk music.
Some of her late works, although they are tonal, shift away from traditional triadic
harmonics to adopt more linear textures and increased dissonance. This shift began with
her String Quartet of 1929 in which she uses Inuit tunes as themes.40 Her harmonic
language became more complex as she matured.41
Beach's harmony, rhythm, texture and form cannot be defined apart from her
piano writing. The pianistic textures and figuration are simply transferred to other
instruments and genres. Her compositional style is inseparable from her technical piano
skills.42 The main features of Beach's compositional style can be found in her
instrumental writing. According to Brown they are: multiple melodic ideas, sections of
tonal ambiguity, rapid harmonic rhythm, pianistic figuration, and dramatic contrasts of
dynamics and tempo.4 Although she did write compositions for many instruments and
voice, her connection with the piano positions the definition of her style within that
medium.44 Because the piano was Beach's primary instrument, it had a great impact on
her composition writing.
According to Brown, Beach's works have several "trademarks" that define her
musical signature. The most common of these are chromatic scales, trill and tremolo, and
octaves. The "trademark" trill can either be a single note, or it can be "expanded to a
tremolo that fulfills a harmonic function" and can often last for several measures.45

41
42
44
5
15
There are several observations one can make about Beach's melodies. Firstly,
and perhaps surprisingly, in Beach's instrumental works there is a "more conjunct
melodic line" than in the vocal works;46 these melodies are easier to adapt to repetition,
cadence and sequence.47 Secondly, Beach's melodic movement is usually chromatic in

8
nature. Thirdly, in her compositions that mimic folk music, or that use an actual folk
melody, the themes or melodies are more tonal. In addition, the folk-like music is found
more in her instrumental music than in her songs. Next, throughout all genres, there
tends to be a wide tessitura in her melodies. In the instrumental works the tessitura seems
to be more idiomatic. Brown concludes that on the basis of her melodies, Beach's
instrumental music is more "suited to its medium" than her vocal music.50 This is not
surprising to come from an instrumental virtuoso such as Beach, but is a little hard to
understand based on the widespread popularity of her songs.51 Lastly, song is the center
of Beach's musical style. She actually used some of her songs as themes in some of her
instrumental compositions, one of which was her symphony. All of these
characteristics help to create the typical, romantic melodies of Beach's music.
Harmonically, she seemed to be more daring than the other members of the
Second New England as she followed Brahms's idea of "undermining tonality through
unconventional chord progressions."53 Like other Romantic composers, Beach

47
48
49
50
5
'Brown, Amy Beach and Her Chamber Music, 147.
52
53
16
emphasized "modal degrees and used mixed modes" in her works. As a result of her
perfect pitch and association of keys with colors, and by extension moods, her
compositions make unusually expressive use of established before modulation.55 Beach's
harmonic movement is also usually chromatic in nature.56 In her early music there is a
lot of dissonance as well as a tendency for chromatic scales.57 There are occasional
exceptions to her sense of harmonic ambiguity; the harmonic re-orientations happen in
such quick successions that a new key is not fully another key is heard. If one were to
undergo a harmonic analysis of one of Beach's typical compositions, one would find
extreme chromaticism, remote harmonies, and quickly changing tonal centers.58
As stated earlier, Beach's harmonies were influenced by Berlioz. Her formal
study of harmony basically consisted of the translation of a treatise on harmony by
Hector Berlioz. His fairly non-chromatic and traditional harmony avoids basic, obvious
chord progressions. He, like Beach, was not interested in the use of strong dissonance,
but at the same time he wanted to avoid predictable harmonies. It is possible that Beach
had borrowed from Berlioz the use of diminished chords as links between tonal centers as
well as the concept of the third relationships. For example, it not uncommon to find C
major and C minor tonalities in a work that is actually written in A major. These
tonalities would then be developed into their own third relationships, and so on. Beach,
like Berlioz, frequently used a dominant-seventh chord, a diminished chord, or a

'Brown, Amy Beach and Her Chamber Music, 135.
17
progression of both types, as a turning pivot for key changes. Cadences are often
avoided, and the key change may be sudden, or instead may follow a period of silence.59
Some of the rhythm characteristics of Beach's music are as follows: syncopation,
triplet figures, "repeated rhythmic motives," cross-rhythms, and "uneven groupings of
notes."60 Beach's use of cross-rhythms is a way in which she creates a sense of rhythmic
freedom, possibly through the influence of Brahms. And although she is loyal to
Brahms, there does not seem to be a consistent use of the hemiola figure.61 Keeping in
mind Beach's use of folk material in her music, Brown states that music that is based on
folk-like material is usually based on a "recurring rhythmic motive and performed
allegro, vivace, or presto." Overall, the rhythmic structures of Beach's works are not
complex.63
Beach used several types of textures throughout her compositions. One of her
most frequently used textures is thick block chords, which is suggestive of Liszt and
Rachmaninoff. Another texture that she used is instrumental figuration of all kinds,
deriving mainly from Liszt. The third texture that is prevalent in most of her works, is
counterpoint, although this is the least common. The textures of the instrumental and
vocal works are so similar in nature that the differences do not need to be mentioned.
The exception to this is that the use of counterpoint is limited almost solely to her
instrumental music. In several of the instrumental works, counterpoint sometimes

60
6l
62
6,
64
18
exists as a secondary texture for contrast, via utilizing the traditional devices of fugue
writing.65
It is hard to classify the forms of Beach's music because there are many melodic
ideas, "harmonic roaming," lack of distinct sections, and lack of thematic development.66
Throughout her compositions there are examples of ternary form, binary form, sonata
form, theme and variations, fugue, and modified strophic form. All genres often include
introductions and codas.67 The multi-movement instrumental forms are the only
compositions that use sonata-allegro form. The development sections are short and
restricted, and become even briefer in her later works. Most of her small-scale works
have ternary form, expanded by introductions and codas. In her short chamber works one
can find ternary form, as well as a form, which resembles a modified strophic song
including an introduction, interlude and a coda.
The balance and symmetry of Classical formal structure also affected Beach.69
Beach's themes are usually built with three or four phrases, each four or eight measures
long. There is usually a repetition of the first phrase in another register. At the times
when there is only a two-phrase theme, both phrases are alike except for the last notes
and the register. Also, Beach sometimes substitutes a "non-melodic rhythmic figure" in
place of a melodic figure in the middle section of a work in ternary form.7 Although
Beach is known as a late romantic composer, she still adheres to Classical formal
structure.
65
66
6
°Brown, Amy Beach and Her Chamber Music, 163.
19
In Beach's lifetime she was given several acknowledgements and recognitions
regarding her abilities as a musician. Laurine Elkins-Marlow states that the National
League of American Pen Women (NLAPW) held the Golden Jubilee Music Festival,
given during the organization's 1934 convention, in honor of Mrs. H. H. A. Beach.71 In
1931 The National League of American Pen Women (NLAPW) claimed to be the largest
literary organization of women in the world. They had a membership of more than 2,000
professional authors, artists, sculptors, writers, and composers in almost every state in the
union. She was so popular that many music clubs were named in her honor. Beach
was known as the '"dean of American women composers."' Along with other major
American composers of her generation, she was listed in books published through about
1930. Beach also served as the leader of several organizations such as Music Teachers
National Association and the Music Educators National Conference. In addition to these
roles she was the co-founder and first president of the Society of American Women
Composers.76
Other note-worthy information about Beach as a composer is how she dealt with
her publishing company, Arthur P. Schmidt. Brown states that the Beach/Schmidt letters
show that she was not receptive to suggestions to revise her music once she declared it
'Laurine Elkins-Marlow, 'Music at Every Meeting:' Music in the

National League ofAmerican Pen Women and the General Federation of
Women's Clubs, 1920-1940, in Gender, Culture, and the Arts: Women, the Arts, and Society,
eds. Ronald Dotterer and Susan Bowers (Cranbury, New Jersey: Associated University Presses,
1992), 188-189.
72
Laurine Elkins-Marlow, Music at Every Meeting, 186.
74
75
Block, Grove Music Online; Laurine Elkins-Marlow, Music at Every Meeting, 186-199, 198;
Block, Amy Beach: Passionate Victorian; and Jenkins, The Remarkable Mrs. Beach.
76
Block, Grove Music Online; Ammer, Unsung, 86; and Carol Neuls-Bates, ed., Women in Music:
An Anthology of Source Readingsfromthe Middle Ages to the Present (New York: Harper &
Row, 1982).
20
completed. There are examples in the letters of her refusal to change melody lines that
the publisher thought was strange, as well as to shorten drawn out piano works, or to
rework a composition that was not so popular. Despite this denial, she did modify
melodic lines to accommodate translations into different languages.79 These letters show
Beach's loyalty to her original manuscripts and her confidence in their original
composition.
Beach lived a double-life between composing and performing. Throughout her
life, Beach admitted to only one major conflict: the performer versus the composer. She
enjoyed both vocations but she found that she had to divide her time between quiet
periods of time for composing and periods of touring and contact with the public.
Beach was successful in both worlds, composing and performing. In an interview she
talked about her compositional practices:
I always compose away from the piano—unless it be an accompaniment that I may

want to try with the voice part, then I sometimes take it to the piano to see what
changes are needed... A theme or subject often rests in my mind months before I
put it on paper.... I do not sit down, as some imagine I do, and say: now I will
write a concerto, a fugue, or some large work. The character of that composition
depends entirely on how the subject works up, whether it becomes a small form or
grows into a larger work. I love to work in the large forms; they are just as easy if
Ol
not easier for me than the small ones.
This quote shows that she does not rely on the piano for composing. It also shows
evidence that she enjoys working in the larger genres, like her mass and symphony.

78
79
80
Beach, Piano Music (1982), i.
81
Brown, Amy Beach and Her Chamber Music, 129; Harriette Brower, "A Personal Interview
with Mrs. H. H. A. Beach, American Composer-Pianist," The Musial Observer XII (May 1915),
273-274.
21
Apparently she enjoys the larger forms more than the smaller genres, like songs and short
piano works.
In addition, in order to fully appreciate Beach's music one must understand the
musical philosophy of her works. According to Beach, there are three sides to the art of
composing: "First is the emotional, or that which reflects our inner feelings and produces
the desire to communicate. Second is the intellectual, or the understanding or musical
form. Third is the spiritual, involving both the listener and the creator."83 This
knowledge is important to understand how and why Beach composed her music. It is
apparent/clear that Beach saw the act of composing primarily as an art and that she had
an undying desire to communicate those emotions to the public.
8
83
Brown, Amy Beach and Her Chamber Music, 128; and Mrs. H. H. A. Beach, "To the Girl Who
Wants to Compose," The Etude 36/1 (November 1918), 695.
22
Chapter 3: Analysis of Gaelic Symphony
This chapter will focus on several analytical perspectives of Beach's Gaelic
Symphony. First, the folk-song aspect will be discussed, followed by a comparison with
Dvorak's Symphony No. 9. Then there will be a brief discussion of each of the four
movements of the symphony, followed by information about form, key areas, metronome
markings, thematic material, instrumentation, and recordings that are published of the
work.
In the late 1800s there were numerous European composers using music from
their ethnic heritage to create distinct and separate national styles: de Falla in Spain,
Grieg in Norway, DTndy and Debussy in France, the Russian "Five," and Smetana and
Dvorak in Bohemia, just to name some of the most prominent. In America, the idea of
independence from the prevailing Austro-German school in music appeared in the late
1800s, and by 1896 Americans had a new broader awareness of national identity, mainly
due to the conquest of the west. Some believed that the next objective was America's
cultural autonomy.1 All of the before-mentioned composers, as well as the national
identity of America, affected Beach's composition of her Gaelic Symphony.
As stated in a previous chapter Beach's Gaelic Symphony is noteworthy because it
was the first symphony by an American woman to be performed anywhere in the world.2
But the Gaelic Symphony was also significant because it was the first symphony by an
American composer to follow Antonin Dvorak's practice of quoting folks songs as
themes. This work and others that followed connect Beach to the nationalist movement
'Block, How to Write an American Symphony.

2
Block and Neuls-Bates, Women in American Music, 220.
23
in music (ca. 1893-1950), which was characterized by the use of folk and traditional
music of native and immigrant groups in the United States.
Beach's main source of folk material in the symphony was Irish folk tunes, in
particular a set of melodies from a folk-song collection published in Dublin in 1841.
Beach explains why she used the tunes:
Their simple, rugged and unpretentious beauty led me to . . . try to develop

their ideas in symphonic form. The work was so fascinating that I decided
to systematize it seriously, and the 'Gaelic' symphony is the result. Most
of the themes are actual quotations from this collection of folk music and
those which are original I have tried to keep in the same idiom and spirit.5
Beach did not name the tunes or the collections, but they have since been identified.
The idea of Irish folk songs being integrated into American music was not a new
concept in 1896. They had been introduced into the American musical mainstream in
1808 with the publication of Thomas Moore's Irish Melodies. Many editions followed
this work. Moore's songs could be heard in middle-class parlors, and theater and concert
stages throughout the nineteenth century. Some examples of his songs were: "The
Minstrel Boy," "The Last Rose of Summer," and "Believe Me, if All Those Endearing
Young Charms."7 Irish folk tunes were quite popular among several composers of the
later 1800s.8 For example, eventually Stephen Foster's songs also became popular in
America. Foster was of Irish descent and he incorporated Irish musical characteristics
into his songs. Many of these songs have a Gaelic inflection in them, such as: "Gentle
Block and Neuls-Bates, Women in American Music, 220.

4
Block, How to Write an American Symphony.
5
Block, Liner Notes, Our Musical Past.
6
Block, Passionate Victorian, 88.
7
8
24
Annie," "Ah, May the Red Rose Live Alway," and "Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair."
Additionally, many writers and actors in musical theatre were themselves Irish. They
often played Irish characters and sang Irish-inspired music. As a result of this, traditional
Irish music crossed ethnic and social class boundaries, and in turn became more
accessible to most of the population.10 By 1896, the American musical culture was
already somewhat used to hearing American music with Irish folk elements.
There are many examples of Scotch or Irish folk tunes in Beach's compositions.
The most well known works by her to use such tunes are Five Songs to Words by Robert
Burns, Op. 43, Three Browning Songs, Op.44, Suite for Two Pianos, and the Gaelic
Symphony. Beach did not utilize folk music the way that Bartok did, with incorporation
of pentatonic scales and primitive rhythms, for example. An exception to this standard is
the Variations on Balkan Themes where Beach used genuine folk tunes for a whole
composition.11 Because of Beach's use of Anglo-American folk music, she essentially
began a movement "that culminated in the American works of Charles Ives, Virgil
Thomson, and Aaron Copland."12 Her contribution to this movement, in turn affected
many American composers.
African-American and Native-American folk tunes are also evident in some of
Beach's music. Examples can be found in several pieces, including the Four
Characteristic Pieces, Op. 64 (Eskimos folk tunes) and From Blackbird Hills, Op. 83
(Omaha Indian Tunes). Also, the vocal solo, On a Hill, was based on a tune that was
9
10
1
' Brown, Amy Beach and Her Chamber Music, 129-130.
12
25
allegedly an original Negro tune. Utilization of Native-American and African-American
folk tunes is also found in the music of other composers of the New England School.
Antonin Dvorak was also quite influential in the composition of Beach's Gaelic
Symphony. With Johannes Brahms's death in 1897, Dvorak became the leading
symphonic composer in Europe. In addition, he was a Czech nationalist composer.14 As
a prominent European symphonic composer, Dvorak had integrated folk elements from
his native country Bohemia into his orchestral works.15 He lived in America between
1892 and 1895, and while in America, Dvorak was the director of the National
Conservatory of Music in New York City, as well as its composition teacher.16 His
temporary residence in America dramatically affected the composition of his Symphony
No. P.17
His comments about American music affected a number of American composers,
including Beach. Dvorak's recommendations for the creation of American national
music were particularly influential, if controversial.18 On May 21 st 1893 the New York
press published comments by Dvorak that aroused heated debate. This controversy
touched on the issues of ethnic problems facing America's diverse population.19 After
being in New York for only eight months, he suggested that American composers who
wanted to develop a true "American" style of composition should find inspiration from
13
l4
15
Block, Liner Notes, Naxos; and Block, Amy Beach: Passionate Victorian, 87-89.
16
Block, How to Write an American Symphony; and Block, Liner Notes.
,7
Block, Amy Beach: Passionate Victorian, 87-89.
]S
B\ock, Amy Beach: Passionate Victorian, 87.
l9
Adrienne Fried Block, Amy Beach: Passionate Victorian, 87; "The Real Value of Negro
Melodies," New York Herald (May 21,1893), 28, on the authorship of the article, see Michael
Beckerman, "The Real Value of Yellow Journalism," Musical Quarterly 11 (Winter 1993): 749-
68, excerpted in John C. Tibbetts, ed., Dvorak in America 1892-1895 (Portland, Ore.: Amadeus
Press, 1993), 355-59.
26
Afro-American music, specifically from minstrel and plantation songs (i.e., work songs
and spirituals). He believed that this music contained every emotion and mood. Even
though Dvorak had named minstrel show music and plantation melodies as resources for
future American art music, contemporary critics quickly pointed out that a large portion
of minstrel show music was written by Caucasian people.
Dvorak's challenge may have been the impetus for Beach's use of Irish and
Scottish traditional songs in her music. Dvorak's comments appeared at the same time
that he was finishing his Symphony No. 9, "From the New World."23 He hinted at the
experience of writing his own symphony when he stated that, '"I am now satisfied . . .
that the future of music of this country must be founded upon what are called negro
melodies. . . . There is nothing in the whole range of composition that cannot be supplied
with themes from this source.'"24 Dvorak's Symphony No. 9 was the second main
influence on Beach and her symphony. By the time of the premiere of the "New
World," Dvorak had mentioned the influence of Native-American music on the middle
movements of the work. He then stated that Native-American music and African-
American music were legitimate sources for American composers.
Later on May 28l 1893 the Boston Herald published several responses by Boston
musicians to Dvorak's statement. Beach was the youngest composer to respond, as well
Block, How to Write an American Symphony; and Block, Liner Notes, Naxos.
21
23
25
26
Block, Amy Beach: Passionate Victorian, 88; John Clapham, "The Evolution of Dvorak's
Symphony 'From the New World,'" Musical Quarterly 44 (1958), 168-169, 175, 177, 180 et
passim, see also Michael Beckerman, "The Master's Little Joke: Antonin Dvorak and the Mask of
Nation," in Dvorak and His World, ed. Michael Beckerman (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
University Press, 1993), 134-54.
27
as the only woman. She replied at length to Dvorak's comments. She first stated that the
plantation songs that he recommended were '"deeply rooted in the heartbreaking griefs'
suffered by African Americans." Yet she objected to his beliefs that blacks were no
more '"native American'" than Italians, Russians, or Swedes.28 It is important to note
that Beach did not include Americans of Anglo-Saxon origin on this list. She believed
that composers should utilize their own heritage. Beach had a personal opposition to
Dvorak's choice. She stated that, "[w]e of the North should be far more likely to be
influenced by the old English, Scotch or Irish songs, inherited with our literature from our
ancestors."30 Songs from Ireland and Scotland had already been a part of the American
T 1
musical mainstream for a century. Because Beach strongly believed that composers
rely on their own ethnic heritage in order to write music, she used Irish folk songs,
instead of African-American or Native-American folk songs, in her symphony.
The Boston Herald asked several other top composers to react to Dvorak's
statement. John Knowles Paine, who was trained in Germany and the first professor of
music at Harvard, declined Dvorak's proposition and felt that there was no need for
nationalist music. Composers Arthur Foote and George Whitefield Chadwick were in
Block, Amy Beach: Passionate Victorian, 87; This same attitude becomes explicit later in the
writings of Daniel Gregory Mason: see MacDonald Smith Moore, Yankee Blues: Musical
Culture and American Identity (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1985), 128-60.
28
29
30
Block, Amy Beach: Passionate Victorian, 87; Charles Hamm, Yesterdays: Popular Song in
America (New York: W.W. Norton, 1979), 42-61, traces the influence following publications of
Thomas Moore's Irish songs and Robert Burns's Scottish melodies. There was also an Anglo-
American folk tradition, but little if anything was known of it in 1893. Its later retrieval would
have a profound influence on American music in the 1930s and '40s.
3
'Block, Amy Beach: Passionate Victorian; 87; Charles Hamm, Yesterdays: Popular Song in
America (New York: W.W. Norton, 1979), 42-61.
28
agreement with Paine, although they actually wrote several compositions inspired by
Scottish and Irish music.
Beach stated her reaction to Dvorak's "New World" in her manuscript book of
music reviews (volume 2). Here is her response:
The symphony as a whole made a far better impression on me than

at its first performance last year. It is interesting throughout, the
machinery of it admirably managed, the orchestral and harmonic
coloring done by a master. It seems to me light in calibre,
however, and to represent only the peaceful, sunny side of the negro
character and life. Not for a moment does it suggest their suffering,
heartbreaks, slavery.33
Beach wished to avoid such pitfalls in her own work, and to some extent her Gaelic
Symphony is a "musical answer" to Dvorak.34
In her choice of thematic material for her symphony, Beach was adhering to her
own advice. The Gaelic Symphony also has a program: it is a musical representation of
the struggles and sufferings of the Irish people, '"their laments... their romance, and their
dreams.'"35 Beach agreed with Dvorak, at least in principle, if not in detail. For her, his
words, and soon his music as well, would authorize and validate the use of folk music in
western art music, whether or not she followed his specific suggestions. Over the next
fifty years, Beach, along with other composers, would create a distinct style of music
derived from ethnic sources; the Gaelic Symphony was a catalyst for this movement.
Several other similarities emerge in comparing the "New World" symphony and
the "Gaelic" symphony. For example, they are both in the key of E minor, use pentatonic

"Block, Amy Beach: Passionate Victorian, 88; Amy Beach, "Music Reviews," vol. 2 (October
1894), University of New Hampshire, Dimond Library, Beach Collection 51, holograph, 33-34.
34
Block, Amy Beach: Passionate Victorian, 86-103; and Block, Liner Notes, Our Musical Past.
35
36
29
themes, and combine folk idioms with late-Romantic German harmonies. Also, both
works feature oboe and English horn solos in the second movement. In addition, they
were written according to their respective composer's suggestions for creating an
American national style. As with much national music at the time, this involved a
combination of "selected folk elements into the German Romantic idiom," which was
then the prevailing language of Western art music.
Beach began work on the first movement of her symphony on November 21,
1894. This was less than a year after the "New World" premiere. Her symphony was
influenced by the "New World" Symphony's use of folk idiom, and quite possibly her
recent exposure to folk and traditional music at the Chicago Fair.38 To research Irish folk
music she read articles on Gaelic life and art in The Citizen, a nationalist magazine
published in Dublin in 1841. Each issue contained several Irish folk songs and
instrumental music. Beach studied the characteristic melodic gestures of the language,
and she explored the compositional potential of the songs, even orchestrating several of
them. She later stated that the songs '"sprang from the common joys, sorrows,
adventures and struggles of a primitive people. Their simple, rugged and unpretentious
beauty led me to 'take my pen in hand' and try to develop their ideas in symphonic
form.'"39 Beach did not name the borrowed tunes or identify her source but the four
melodies in the "Gaelic" Symphony, in addition to five melodies later used in her Suite

38
Block, Amy Beach: Passionate Victorian, 88, 91.
39
Block, Amy Beach: Passionate Victorian, 88, from Caryl B. Storrs, "Program Notes" [1917],
Beach Clipping File, New York Public Library, Lincoln Center Library for the Performing Arts,
Music Research Division.
30
for Two Pianos Founded upon Old Irish Themes, Op. 104, are all drawn from the folk
tunes published in The Citizen.
Beach explained that the last theme of the first movement of the Gaelic
Symphony, the theme of the second movement, and the two themes of the third movement
were all based on Gaelic melodies. Beach used three of the four tunes in their entirety.
Beach had several other composers as well as Dvorak to guide her here; Tchaikovsky had
used the Russian folk song "The Birch Tree" in his Fourth Symphony (1877) and Vincent
D'Indy's Symphony on a French Mountain Air (1866) quotes a French folk-song. In
regards to the original themes in the symphony, Beach stated that they were written in the
Gaelic style.4 Even though not every theme in the symphony is authentically Gaelic, the
themes are woven into the symphony seamlessly, as if to imply that the entire work's
thematic material is Gaelic in nature.
1st Movement: Allegro confuoco (6/8) (2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets in A, 2 bassoons,
4 horns in F, 2 trumpets in F, three trombones & bass-tuba, timpani in 8, D, E, and
strings)
Beach's Gaelic Symphony is in E minor and contains four movements. The first
movement, Allegro con fuoco, is in sonata form and introduces themes that resemble
Gaelic folk tunes. In this movement Beach used two themes drawn from her own song
"Dark is the Night!" Op. 11, No. 1 (1890) — although she never admitted to this
40
41
Block, Amy Beach: Passionate Victorian, 87-100; and Jenkins, The Remarkable Mrs. Beach,
37; Mrs. Beach wrote her own analysis of the symphony, a copy of which is with Jenkins's
manuscript at the University of New Hampshire. Cf. Appendix A.
42
43
Block, Liner Notes, Naxos; Block, Amy Beach: Passionate Victorian: 87-100; and Jenkins, The
Remarkable Mrs. Beach, 173-176.
31
transference.44" These themes represent the first and second main themes of the
movement. The text to the original song is by the English poet William Ernest Henley
(1849-1903) and is as follows:
The sea if full of wand'ring foam,

The sky of driving cloud;
My restless thoughts among them roam. -
The night is dark and loud.
Where are the hours that came to me,
So beautiful and bright?
A wild wind shakes the wilder sea.
O dark and loud's the night.
Beach's setting fully supports the poem, and the "image of a cruel and turbulent sea could
hardly be more fitting in a symphony about an isolated people such as the Gaels of
Ireland."46 Of the several sea songs that Beach set to music, none is more turbulent,
stormy, and fierce. The song is marked as Allegro confuoco and has a melodic line that
is valiant and foreboding. The accompaniment, which Beach describes as a "murmuring
chromatic figure," propels the song with increasing intensity.47 Beach did not, however,
use the song melodies complete, as she does with the folk tunes in the second and third
movements. The piano accompaniment that begins the song was rewritten for the
beginning measures of the symphony. In the opening measures the whizzing chromatic
figures symbolize the tumultuous sea around Ireland 49
44
Block, Amy Beach: Passionate Victorian, 86-91, 304; and Block, Liner Notes, Naxos.
45
46
47
Block, Amy Beach: Passionate Victorian, 91; Beach, "Analytical Review of Symphony in E
Minor ('Gaelic'), Op. 32," typescript bound with the edition of the work in the Allen A. Brown
Collection, Boston Public Library, Music Department.
48
w
B\ock, Amy Beach: Passionate Victorian, 91 -96.
32
(b)
•*-*Ult
i^^si£&^£ m M * - * - * * « • # • .* . * * - * . * • * • - ^ - i . . .. - »
*_ £-4-*.* * * *
*7 ff ftffi^ *J&4
r ^ , , j 3 p » ^ p T
T*"* ^ ^ T T r-
(a) "Dark Is the Night!" op it, no i, mm. i - 6 (Arthur P Schmidt, 1890)
(b) "Gaelic" Symphony, holograph, I, mm 1-5
Example 1.1
Beach uses this figure throughout the movement as an accompaniment to the first theme
as well as an introduction to later sections. It is a driving and unifying element for the
entire movement. 50
The first theme is based on music of line seven of the song, with the words "'A
wild wind shakes the wilder sea."3'

33
(a)
lempo I" mr> = = = = =
«A_4 S
A wild wind
-.-—i
shakes
i
the wild
m
(b)
"Dark Is the Night!" nun. 4 3 - 4 5 . (b) "Gaelic" Symphony, holograph, I, first

theme, mm. 17-21.
Example 1.2
The product is a march-like, heroic theme, first stated in the horns and then the trumpets,
that sets up the Allegro first movement.52
^Block, Amy Beach: Passionate Victorian, 96.
34
Example 1.3 (mm. 13-19)
35
»«.,
Example 1.3 (mm. 20-26) (continued)
36
There is a secondary theme that echoes the introductory passages with chromaticism.53 It
is lyrical in nature, and is based on the melody from the middle portion of the song,
where the text asks "Where are the hours that came to me, so beautiful, so bright."54
Cpoco pio tranquillo.
i#^
PT7T ifr
, A p?oco pin trdnqnlllo.
Example 1.4 (mm. 107-120)
'Block, Liner Notes, Our Musical Past: Block, Amy Beach: Passionate Victorian, 91-96; and
3
37
For the closing theme of the exposition, Beach uses a dance tune titled, "Conchobhar ua
Raghallaigh Cluann," which translated means "Connor O'Reilly of Clounish."03 This
tune recalls the pastoral sound of a bagpiper's chanter and drone. The first time it
appears it is presented as onl> a brief suggestion of the melody, which is then presented
in its entirety in the recapitulation.36
(i) 'Conchobhar ua Raghallaigh Ouann fb> Beach Gaelic SyrnphoT1)

holograph I dosing rbeme of-ecapituiaaon mm ±A-Z~^°
Example 1.5
'"Block, Amy Beach Passionate Victorian. 96

'"Block, Amy Beach: Passionate Victorian, 96.
38
fjp a tempo s-^. / _
;, . »»**• so, j p a JS3/B i i i T f t i a j. , > ., Jn,
Example 1.6 (mm. 437-443)
39
trapquillo.
/MJEfij
40
The material for the extended development section is from the first two themes, not the
dance tune. The clarinet plays a recitative to introduce the recapitulation.57
-/ (.J1- Piu lento. rail

pll—2 _= ,—J = 1 ±:
=-—— = 1 = _—=—
1*
M
If I ——= = 1
= r- •
— = —=.,— =
1*
\ Q \ Soto I. oen espresstvo ~V" ~~*""-
(mE—r .7 -J™
•* W'
" ^P .
Fag.
J ^
—
STji V
Example 1.7 (mm.318-332)

41
Example 1.7 (mm.333-339) (continued)
In the exposition the first theme is from Beach's song "Dark is the Night!" using
the text "A wild wind shakes the wilder sea." The second theme is also from Beach's
song "Dark is the Night!" using the words "Where are the hours that came to me, so
42
beautiful, so bright." The closing theme is from a dance tune-"Conchobhar ua
Raghallaigh Cluann'V'Connor O'Reilly of Clounish." In the recapitulation the themes
are used exactly the same way as in the exposition. In the coda Beach uses the first
theme from her song "Dark is the Night!" using the text "A wild wind shakes the wilder
sea." This movement took Beach seven months to complete and was finished on June 9,
1895. She then immediately began work on the last movement.58
2nd Movement: Alia Siciliana (12/8); Allegro vivace (2/4) (2 flutes, 1 piccolo, 2 oboes,
1 English horn, 2 clarinets in B-flat, 2 bassoons, 4 horns in F, triangle, timpani in F,
G & C, and strings)
Out of the four movements of her symphony Beach wrote the second movement
first. She began working on it less than a year after the "New World" premiere.59 The
movement is titled "Alia Siciliana" and its meter is 12/8.60 The movement is
monothematic and for the theme she orchestrated the entire Gaelic folk song "Goirtin
Ornadh," which means "The Little Field of Barley." 61
5
Block. Amy Beach: Passionate Victorian, 91-96; Jenkins, The Remarkable Mrs. Beach, IX-ld;
and Block, Liner Notes, Our Musical Past.
5
Block. Amy Beach: Passionate Victorian, 88-89.
60
Block. Amy Beach: Passionate Victorian, 89.
61
Block, How to Write an American Symphony; and Block, Amy Beach: Passionate Victorian,
89.
43
Rather Slow and with Expression.
I dream d my love ot thee In the first sweet sleep of night When
i dolcei I
P^^^^ -t
winds were breathing low And the stars were shining bright
kUlÊi
'§f
(bt
(?A«
fa) "Goirtan Ornadh, mm i—8 Beach, Symphony m E Minor ("Gaelic"),

op 32, holograph, II (b) mm 5 12, (c) mm 35-39 (University of New Hampshire, Durham)
e 1.8
(c)
Example 1.8 (continued)
The movement resembles a scherzo in reverse. The siciliano constitutes a slow
trio-like opening; a faster scherzando section follows, and then the movement ends with a
return to the siciliano. 62 The folk tune "Goirtin Ornadh" is contained in the first section
of the movement. It is given to the woodwinds, which seem to imitate a bagpipe.63
b->
Ammer Unsung, 79, Block, Liner Notes, Naxos; and Block, Liner Notes, Our Musical Past
6
Block. Amy Beach Passionate Victorian, 89.
45
Solo
Example 1.9 (mm.4-12)
46
poco rail.
"•JS JSi- jfttjsn 2 7
47
In the middle section, Beach changes the folk song into a fast, constantly moving theme
that calls to mind the scherzos of Mendelssohn.64 The section is marked Allegro vivace, a
scherzo in a duple meter, instead of the usual triple meter.
Allegro vivace. (J = 1323
Example 1.10 (mm. 19-31)

48
?L pica
Brahms's Second Symphony, Op. 73, may have been a model in this case. Brahms's
work not only reverses the expected order of the scherzo and trio, but also, like the Gaelic
49
Symphony, has a middle Presto ma non assai in a duple meter that is a modification of
5
the opening Allegro gracioso.
Beach completed the second movement in only two months, finishing it on March
22, 1894. Later, probably after completion of the third and first movements, she added a
short introduction to the second movement, utilizing portions of the main theme. 66 This
movement is the shortest movement of the symphony, but coincidentally it is the
movement that many critics found as the most likable, probably for its clear form,
singable theme, and lively nature. 67
3 r d Movement: Lento con molto espressione (6/4) (2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets in A, 1
bass clarinet in A, 2 bassoons, 4 horns and 2 trumpets in F, 3 trombones and bass
tuba, timpani in B and E, strings)
The third movement, Lento con molto espressione is based on two pre-existing
Celtic folk tunes. 68 One song praised Ireland's beauty and the other mourned for a dead
65
Block, Amy Beach: Passionate Victorian, 89, 115.
66
Block, Amy Beach: Passionate Victorian, 89; A holograph of the symphony, in pencil with
corrections in ink, is at the University of New Hampshire, Dimond Library, Beach Collection 51.
Dates where given are at the head and the close of each movement. There are separate
paginations for each movement, listed here in order of composition. Page numbers refer to the
holograph in ink at Library of Congress, Music Division. Second movement, Alia Siciliana,
begun January (?) 1894, completed March 22, 1894 (p. 32). The movement begins with what is
now m. 5. Third movement, Lento con molto espressione, completed November 14, 1894 (p. 36).
First movement, Allegro con fuoco, begun November 21,1894, finished June 9, 1895 (p. 86), is
bound with the one page introduction to the second movement. Fourth movement, Allegro di
molto, begun June 13, 1895, completed February 16, 1896 (p. 84). See also untitled article, in S2,
17. The score was published in Leipzig with a German title page (Boston and Leipzig: Arthur P.
Schmidt, 1897).
67
68
50
child.69 The first tune is based on a lullaby dated from c. 1800 titled, '"Paisdin Fuinne,'
('The Lively Child") or '•Cushlamachree."70
^^JiB^H
i^Wfe
=SEEt=£=$-Z^*
f 3
i^SB+l-f,^
^Sr.ff^S
fa) Paisdin Fumne (bj Beach Symphony in E Minor ('Gaelic ) hclo

grapî [II first theme mm l o 39
Example 1.11

51
(a) (connnued)
m m^ = :
m^n£?
^p*- ^ ^ ^ m
$^m • I• 0 *— o
-£i
^ ^ ^ ^
iliiigils
r ^s
ÊEjE S t^m
PP
^^^^3M TPH^-T-
(b)
(continued)
Example 1.11a. "Paisdin Fuinne,*' b. Beach, Symphony in E Minor, holograph, III, mm.
20-39 (continued)
52
It is stated in its entirety, first with solo cello and then later with woodwinds and strings 71
Ft f W ^ f j i -J— —t
Example 1.12 (mm.5-14)
71
53
vioi. soio ritmolto a tempo
The second folk tune is titled "Cia an Bealach a Deachaidh Si," ("Which way did she
72
go?")-
72
54
(a) SLOW MaeU Metroro S' eo
&^^f-
cresc
She was mild as the Summer Air Like the timid Doves were her
t^^^^^^^^^^zp^
(a) Cia an Bealach a Deachaide Si' (b) Beach 'Gaelic Symphony holo
graph III second theme, itim 9S"~98
Example 1.14 (93-97)
This folk tune was sung by a woman from Kerry "as she wandered in her grief and
melancholy . . . . [The song became] the solace of every peasant [who] felt the sorrows of
this distracted country'7.73 The folk tunes Beach used are at sometimes sad, while others
are heroic conveying '"the laments of a primitive people, their romance and their dreams"
in Beach's words.74
The movement, though broadly-speaking in sonata form, is also unique in its
"double construction." ' The two themes are varied and developed independently in the
exposition, and then combined in the development section.76 In the exposition, the first
theme is stated, developed, and then recalled in its original form. Beach then goes
through the same process with the second folksong theme. There is a connection
between the two main sections: a portion of the second theme is stated early in the first
73
Block, Amy Beach: Passionate Victorian, 89-91; "The Native Music of Ireland," The Citizen 3
(January 1841), 64.
56
section. The orchestration of both sections includes solos for violin, cello, oboe, and
clarinet.77 It was completed on November 11, 1894, seven months after she began
composing it.78 The third movement of the symphony took longer to compose, but it is
also the longest movement of the four.79
4th Movement: Allegro di molto (2/2) (flutes, oboes, clarinets in A, bassoons, horns &
trumpets in F, trombones, tuba, timpani in F-sharp, B, and D, and strings)
The fast last movement is similar to the first and third movements, in that it is in
OA Ql
sonata form. But unlike the other movements the themes are all Beach's own themes.
Beach stated, '"There is no subsidiary theme or phrase that is not the direct outcome of
the principal subject in some of its modified forms'."
The first theme comes from a fragment in the first movement, which actually
came from "Dark is the Night!"
77r.i.-i. A Beach.
Block, Amy r>—;.. pass[onaie Victorian, 89.
78
Block, Amy Beach. Passionate Victorian, 91.
79
Block, Amy Beach. Passionate Victorian, 89.
80
Block, Amy Beach: Passionate Victorian, 99; and Ammer, Unsung, 79.
81
Block, Amy Beach: Passionate Victorian, 99
82
Block, Amy Beach: Passionate Victorian, 99
83
57
(b)
C t.e-'c -
(a) "Dark Is the Night!" mm 18-20 (b) "Gaehc" Symphony holograph, rV,
first theme, mm 19-27.
Example 1.15
Additional themes were derived from the first theme.84 The second theme, first played by
the violas, is Romantic in nature because of its wide range, length, its rhythmic
suspensions and its prominent rising and falling sixths.85
Block, Amy Beach Passionate Victorian, 99.

Block, Amy Beach Passionate Victorian, 99.
58
Poco piu lento. (J=ioo)
Poco pii lento. (J= wo)
^ Jt- 1 J* Jtffh I- J*N^

p
Poco piu lento. (<J= 100)
PP poco crese.
Example 1.16 (mm. 107-115)
59
Example 1.16 (mm. 116-124)
Beach stated that the end of the fourth movement, which is in E major, has '"fanfares of
trumpets, horns and trombones surrounded by rapid fortissimo figures in the strings and
60
full chords in the wind instruments'" which brings the symphony '"to an energetic
close'."86
tea fnnguiiio
Example 1.17 (mm. 393-403)
61
Tfc" ' ""- —- - - ' - • -— - - -
«i
q- '
|l« 1 M ' ' , ,.,' , — = — ~ — = — —= =__ = — = — L. '*—*
P
*HEEE— — — _ — 1 — _ — I — - — — . — i—_— i — _ — . — _ —
g pp poco crest.
poco crese.
62
To comment on the fourth movement Beach stated that it '"tries to express the
rough, primitive character of the Celtic people, their sturdy daily life, their passions and
battles, and the elemental nature of the processes of thought and its resulting action.'"
Beach finished composing the movement on February 16, 1896 but is thought to have
made some minor adjustments later because she told the press two weeks later, '"only
today I wrote the last notes of my new symphony'." 88
Analysis of the key areas that Beach uses in her symphony is also worth
mentioning. The first movement begins in E minor, and moves to G major for the 2"
theme; unusually, this theme is brought back in Ab major, rather than the tonic or tonic
major, in the recapitulation. The entire second movement is in the key of F major with
the exception of part of the 2nd Alia Siciliana in which modulates to Db major. The third
movement is centered in E minor but travels through the keys of G major, B major, E
major, before returning to E minor. The movement is in E minor, but ventures through
the keys of C major, B major, A major, G major, E minor, and finally ends in E major.
See Table 1.1 for a summary of the forms and key areas for the symphony.
It is also worth commenting on the instrumentation of the symphony and how it
compares to Dvorak's 9th Symphony.90 The instrumentation of individual movements was
noted earlier. Overall, 9th Symphony and Beach's Gaelic Symphony have similar
instrumentations: The woodwind section is the same with the exception of the Bass
87
Block, Amy Beach: Passionate Victorian, 99; Caryl B. Storrs, Program Notes, Beach Clipping
File, New York Public Library, Lincoln Center Library for the Performing Arts, Music Research
Division.
88
Block, Amy Beach: Passionate Victorian, 100, Clipping, Boston Globe (March 1, 1896), (Amy
Beach, Scrapbook, 1889-1906, University of New Hampshire , Dimond Library, Beach
Collection, 51, 17).
89
See Table 1.1
90
See Table 1.1
63
Clarinet in Beach's symphony and the Clarinet in Bb in Dvorak's work. The brass
section is essentially the same and the percussion section in Dvorak's work has cymbals
whereas Beach's does not. In terms of more specific instrumental connections and
contrasts, both Beach and Dvorak use the English horn as* a solo instrument in then-
second movements. Beach uses the tuba in all movements except the second movement,
whereas Dvorak restricts the instrument to the second movement of his symphony.
Beach also chooses to use the piccolo in her second movement, an interesting decision
given that typically the piccolo is not used in a slow, subdued movement of a symphony,
but is instead reserved for the faster movements, most commonly finales; Beach only
uses it in her slow second movement. Dvorak uses the piccolo only in his first
movement, and then briefly.
The Gaelic Symphony has been recorded three times. The first recording was
made on the Chandos label in 1992, with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra conducted by
Neeme Jarvi. The second appeared on the Bridge label in 1999, with Karl Krueger
conducting the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. The most recent recording, by Kenneth
Schermerhorn and the Nashville Symphony, was issued by Naxos in 2003.
. All three recordings are wonderful resources for performing musicians. They
differ, nevertheless, in their degree of faithfulness to Beach's metronome markings as
well as cuts that are made to make the movements shorter. Table 1.2 shows a detailed
comparison of the three recordings. As shown in the table, the metronome marking of
the first movement is J.=120 at the Allegro con fuoco. The second movement's
metronome markings are J,=40 at the Alia Siciliana, and J=132 at the Allegro vivace. In
64
the third movement the metronome marking is J= 72 at the Lento con molto espressione,
J=84 at the Piu mosso at measure 40, J = 72 at rehearsal G (measure 106), and at
rehearsal I (measure 129) the J=66. The last movement is 6-\l>2 with the tempo marking
of Allegro di molto, d=100 at the Poco piu lento, J=132 at the Allegro di molto (measure
151), J=100 at 17 measures after rehearsal L (measure 341), J=100 at the Ritmo di tre
battute at 27 measures after rehearsal P (measure 483), and at the last Allegro di molto
(measure 515) is J=132. The following information is important to note about the tempi
of the three recordings.
As one can see from looking at Table 1.2 the Detroit Symphony recording is
somewhat close to the original metronome markings: The first movement metronome
marking is closer to J.=112 or 114. The second movement's Alia Siciliana is between
J.=42-48. The Allegro Vivace is between J—126-132. The third movement's Lento con
molto espressione fluctuates between J=72-92 and the metronome marking of J=84 at the
Piu mosso (measure 40) is closer to J=94-98. At rehearsal G (measure 106) the tempo
fluctuates between J=70-76, not 72, and the J=62-66 at rehearsal I (measure 129), The
65
last movement's Allegro di molto is J=132-140 and the tempo of the Poco piu lento is
accurate at J=100. When the Allegro di molto returns before rehearsal E (measure 151) it
is between J=T32-140. When the tempo changes after rehearsal L (measure 341) to
J=100 the tempo is accurate. At the Tempo I after rehearsal N (measure 401) the tempo
is between J=132-134. At the Ritmo di tre battute (measure 483) the J=110 and at the
Tempo 1 before rehearsal Q (measure 481) the tempo is accurate at J=132. The writer
found this recording to be out of tune and lacking in musicianship. Overall, this
recording was fair and insignificant.
Regarding the Royal Philharmonic recording, one can see from looking at Table
1.2 that the first movement's Allegro con fuoco is closer to J.=112. The second
movement's Alia Siciliana fluctuates between J.=38-46 and the Allegro Vivace fluctuates
between J=l 16-128. The third movement's Lento con molto espressione fluctuates
between J=60-72. The Piu mosso is closer to J=80 instead of 84, and the J—56 at
rehearsal 1 (measure 129). The fourth movement starts at J=120 instead of J=132. At the
Pocopiu lento the tempo is closer to J=98 instead of 100. When Tempo I returns before
66
rehearsal E (measure 151) the tempo is closer to d=126 than 132. At the Tempo I after
rehearsal N (measure 401) the tempo is between J=126, not J=132. At the Ritmo di tre
battute (measure 483) the tempo is closer to J=98 (or slower) than J=100 and the Tempo
I before rehearsal Q (measure 515) is closer to J=126 than 132. The second movement
was incredibly too slow, and there were cuts in movements I (mm. 327-507), III (mm.
93-138), and IV (mm. 203-275, mm. 301-457 and mm. 539-555). Some of the notes in
the recording were too "punchy," the orchestra did not blend well and there were several
intonation issues. Overall, the recording was badly out of tune, the instruments did not
balance well, and was not "romantic" enough in nature.
Lastly the third recording by the Nashville Symphony in Table 1.2 shows that the
first movement adhered to the metronome marking. The second movement's Alia
Siciliana fluctuates between J.=42-48. The Allegro Vivace is true to the tempo marking
of J=132. The third movement's Lento con molto espressione is consistent with Beach's
metronome marking of J=72 as well as J=84 at the Piii mosso, the J=72 at rehearsal G
(measure 106) is also accurate as well as the J=66 at rehearsal I (measure 129), The last
movement's Allegro di molto is a little less than J=132 and is probably closer to J=128 or
130. The tempo of the Poco piit lento is accurate. When the Allegro di molto returns
67
(before rehearsal E-measure 151) it seems like it is closer to d=116. When the tempo
changes after rehearsal L (measure 341) to 6~ 100 the tempo is accurate. At the Tempo I
after rehearsal N (measure 401) the tempo is closer to J=128 or 130. At the Ritmo di tre
battute (measure 483) the tempo is closer to J=l 10 and at the Tempo I before rehearsal Q
(measure 515) the tempo returns to approximately J=T28 instead of 132. This recording
showed elements of great musicianship.
After listening to all three recordings, this writer believes that the Nashville
Symphony recording is the best product out of all three. It seems to be truer to the
metronome markings and certainly sounds, overall, more "romantic" in nature. It is more
in tune than the other recordings and the orchestra has a more highly refined, blended
sound.
In conclusion, the Gaelic Symphony is a remarkable and original symphony,
despite its outwardly conventional form.91 It is a full-scale late-Romantic work, and like
all of Beach's early major works, it contains the "passionate intensity" that typifies her
music. The Gaelic Symphony has earned its place in the symphonic tradition, and
demonstrates Beach's incorporation of folk music within a classical setting.93 Like
Ammer, Unsung, 79.

92
Hector Valdivia, "Amy Beach." Women Composers: Women Through the Ages, Vol. 8,
Composers Born 1800-1899 Large and Small Instrumental Ensembles, eds. Sylvia Glickman and
Martha Furman Schleifer (Farmington Hills: Thomson Gale, 2006), 369.
Dvorak in his 'New World' symphony, Beach utilized folk melodies to weave a fabric of
fresh late-romantic symphonic sounds.
69
Chapter 4: Reception and Gender
The topics of reception and gender are closely inter-related and must be discussed
together. Reception of the Gaelic Symphony will be discussed first, starting with the
United States, and then focusing on the reception in Europe; the subject of gender and
feminism will then be discussed in broader terms, in relation to Beach's symphony and to
some of the contemporary women composers of her time.
The Gaelic Symphony achieved the greatest success of any American symphony
by any composer of Beach's generation. The reviews in the newspapers are greater in
length than critiques of any other previous work by her. This also shows the impact that
the work made on Boston audiences in particular. In the 1890s the city of Boston served
as a hub for the education of women. The city took seriously its role as the cultural
center for their education and their role in the community.2 This environment helped to
foster Beach's development and reception as a composer. There were performances of
the Gaelic Symphony in a wide range of American cities, including Boston, Buffalo,
Brooklyn, Kansas City, Chicago, and New York. The performance of her symphony
brought Beach approval from both colleagues and critics, with overwhelmingly positive
reviews in both the United States and Europe.4
The American responses will be discussed first. Composer and pianist George
Chadwick wrote the following in a letter to Beach:

Jane Bowers and Judith Tick, eds. Women Making Music: the Western Art Tradition, 1150-
7950 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1986), 343.
4
Brown, Amy Beach and Her Chamber Music, 39-40; Jenkins, The Remarkable Mrs. Beach, 37-
47; and Block, Amy Beach: Passionate Victorian, 86-103.
70
I want you to know how much Mr. Parker [Horatio] and I enjoyed your symphony
on Saturday evening. It is full of fine things, melodically, harmonically and
orchestrally, and mighty well built besides. I always feel a thrill of pride myself
whenever I hear a fine new work by any one of us, and as such you will have to
be counted as, whether you will or not, one of the boys.5
Chadwick was obviously a supporter of Beach and her music. He, like most composers
of the Second New England School of Composition, accepted Beach's work as being as
worthy as works by male composers of the time.
In a review of the Gaelic Symphony as played by the Manhattan Symphony
Orchestra, it is stated that the work has "a freshness, spontaneity, charming melodic
contour and orchestration that reflect the pure romanticism of its period. Mrs. Beach may
well be proud of this lovely work which aroused a large audience to great enthusiasm."
Another review opined that "Mrs. Beach is a musician of genuine talent, who by the
imagination, technical skill and sense of orchestration displayed in this symphony has
brought honor to herself and the city which is her dwelling place." It was rare, however,
for reviewers not to feel that they must address the issue of gender, as Chadwick had, at
least implicitly. One article advances the view that, "At last the American public...are
waking up to the fact that one of the greatest living women composers is an
American...." Another reviewer presents a typical reaction to her gender: "The
composer honored yesterday...was Mrs. H. H. A. Beach, of Boston, widely heralded by
Brown, Amy Beach and Her Chamber Music, 39-40; and Block, Amy Beach: Passionate
Victorian, 103; Autograph Album, No. 68, University of New Hampshire, Dimond Library,
Beach Collection 51.
6
Brown, Amy Beach and Her Chamber Music, 94; unsigned article, "Women Composers Honor
Mrs. Beach," The Musical Leader 60/6 (February 5, 1931), 8.
Jenkins, The Remarkable Mrs. Beach, 39; Philip Hale, Boston Journal (November 4, 1896).
8
Brown, Amy Beach and Her Chamber Music, 72; unsigned article, "Mrs. H. H. A. Beach With
the Boston Symphony Orchestra," The Musical Courier LXXIII/10 (September 7, 1916), 49, New
York Public Library Clipping File.
71
the musically erudite as America's leading representative of her sex in music." In 1916
there was a performance of Beach's symphony in Kansas City, and in two reviews of the
performance one can see that the gender issue is still being raised twenty years after the
premiere of the work:
The Beach Symphony is a work of impressive beauty. Although it was written by

an American woman, it has in the main neither sex nor country.... Expecting
something less deep, more lyric and merely lovely in context, the listener finds
adjustment necessary. An unprejudiced ear must concede that Mrs. Beach has
written a symphony that is likely to live.10
Although it states that the work is written by a woman, the review suggests that it
transcends issues of gender or nationality. The second review states:
Mrs. Beach's Symphony which has been produced a number of times since it was
first played ten [sic] years ago, is a splendidly virile composition, betraying none
of the weaknesses of feminism in an artistic sense and none of the too-dominant
masculinism which is often characteristic of masculine nature students.
Here the emphasis is on the balance of feminine and masculine elements, with an excess
of the latter being seen as a potential failing in other works of the time. With a slightly
different approach, reviewer Austin Latchett wrote the following:
[women] have not written so brilliantly, so profoundly nor so prolifically as men

have. . . . there would probably be no one to suspect that yesterday's symphony
was the work of a woman . . . it is but natural that some of its most distinctive
beauties should be directly associated with its feminine origin.
Latchett alludes to the idea that Beach's symphony sounds like a man could have written
it. But he also seems to contradict himself in that he states that some of it sounds
'feminine.'
Brown, Amy Beach and Her Chamber Music, 72; unsigned article, "Beach Day at San Diego,"
The Musical Courier LXXII1 (May 18, 1916), 60, New York Public Library Clipping File.
Brown, Amy Beach and Her Chamber Music, 71-72; Kansas City Times (April 5, 1916).
1
'Brown, Amy Beach and Her Chamber Music, 71 -72; Kansas City Journal (April 5,1916).
12
Jenkins, The Remarkable Mrs. Beach, 43; Kansas City Journal, there is no date given in
Jenkins's book, this is part of a lengthy review of the piece. Cf.
72
A review of the symphony with the Philadelphia Orchestra offers a rare example
of gender comparison that ranks Beach as superior, not just equal, to some of her male
contemporaries. Her work was valued above other new symphonies by composers such
as Paderewski, Guy Ropartz, and Frederick Stock. The reviewer states that Beach is the:
most eminent woman composer America has produced, and this symphony holds
its own in the distinguished company of the few fine modern compositions in that
form. . . . the symphony needs no critical allowance on the basis of sex. It leaves
the Paderewski symphony or that of Mr. Stock, lately played, so far behind that
there is no just comparison. . . .
One reviewer, Philip Hale, offered a mostly positive review, but followed by a caveat:
. . . Let me say frankly that this symphony is the fullest exhibition of Mrs. Beach's
indisputable talent. I think it should be ranked as a whole above her Mass [op. 5]
. . .Of the four movements, the second stands out in sharpest relief. There is
plenty of good stuff in the first; there is an elemental swing as well as a force that
almost approaches grandeur in the finale; there are many excellent things in the
detail on which I would fain dwell, but the scherzo is to me the most complete,
rounded and truly musical of the movements.14
After these positive remarks the authors goes on to attribute "excessively heavy
orchestration in parts of the score to Beach's feelings of inferiority as a female
composer." This was not the only negative comment about the work, despite the
positive tone of most of the reviews, and much of the negativity sprang from attitudes to
gender. Walter Damrosch, conductor of the New York Symphony Orchestra, believed
that it was not in a woman's nature to write great music. He believed that Beach's
attempt at a symphony "lackfed] weight and profundity, sentiment and philosophy in
comparison with men's masterpieces. . .[she has] not produced any thing that could even
Jenkins, The Remarkable Mrs. Beach, 78-79; Public Ledger, February 27, 1915, other reviews
in Philadelphia Press, Evening Bulletin, and Philadelphia Record, all on the same date.
l4
Neuls-Bates, Women in Music, 224; Philip Hale, "Mrs. Beach's Symphony Produced Last Night
in Music Hall," Boston Sunday Journal (November 1, 1896), 2.
15
Neuls-Bates, Women in Music, 223.
73
be called near great."16 Apparently, Damrosch was not so supportive of Beach's efforts
to conquer a male-dominated form. In a similar vein, another reviewer, in the Musical
Courier on February 23, 1898, complains that the work is:
too long, too strenuously worked over, and attempts too much. . . .Almost every
modern composer has left a trace in her score, which in its efforts to be Gaelic and
masculine end in being monotonous and spasmodic. . . .The slow movement is
unqualifiedly tiresome, for the composer never knows where to stop. . . .What she
says in her work has been said a thousand times before. . .[there is] lack of logic.
Contrapuntally she is not strong. Of grace and delicacy there are evidences in the
Siciliana, and there she is at her best, 'But yet a woman.'17
Hale's review demonstrates clearly the dominant sexual aesthetics of Beach's time: all
the perceived defects center on the idea that Beach is attempting something alien to her
gender. He condemns Beach's lack of logic and of strength in counterpoint. At the same
time he notes the "womanly grace and delicacy of the Siciliana or scherzo movement."18
This critic shows that the system of sexual aesthetics in the nineteenth century found both
defects and virtues in a composition by a woman to be the expected result of her
gender.19
In the years just before the First World War the symphony began to make an
impact in Europe, where interest was encouraged by the fact that Beach herself began to
travel there as a performer. Adrienne Block states that despite the traditional view that
Beach was a wealthy widow, her husband did not leave her a large amount of money. In
fact, he left her a large amount of debt and she had to find a way to earn money. At first
Block, A my Beach: Passionate Victorian, 201; "Woman Has Achieved Little in Musical
Spheres," in Walter Damrosch Scrapbooks, vol. 1, 1881-1927, New York Public Library, Lincoln
Center Library for the Performing Arts, Music Research Division.
17
Neuls-Bates, Women in Music, 225; unsigned article (possibly Philip Hale), "Boston Symphony
Concert," Musical Courier 36/8 (February 23, 1898), 29-30; and Green, Music, Gender,
Education, 99.
18
l9
74
she simply depended on her composing royalties. But in 1911 she restarted her
90
performing career as a virtuoso and traveled to Europe. Essentially her Gaelic
Symphony and her piano concerto became the main force behind her extensive European
tour. 21 She was determined to establish herself as a performer and a composer, as well as
to promote the sale of her own compositions. She gave recitals in Germany and her
99
symphony was performed in Germany as well. This trip to Europe began a new chapter
in Beach's life. Although she originally believed that she would only stay for a short
9-3 t
duration, she stayed for three years, from 1911 to 1914. Even though she did not wish
to, she was compelled to leave Europe in 1914 because of the onset of World War I.
In general the European reviews were positive. One journal reported that Beach
was the most important American composer of the time. 25 During the year 1913 Beach
performed in European cities such as Leipzig, Hamburg, and Berlin, and her symphony
was performed in Leipzig and Hamburg. 26 Letters between Beach and Arthur P. Schmidt
reveal that these performances were successful with the German audiences and critics, as
97
well as being financially successful for Beach. It is interesting to note that while Beach
was in Europe she was referred to as "Amy Beach" as opposed to "Mrs. H. H. A.
Jenkins, The Remarkable Mrs. Beach, 71-77; Block, Amy Beach: Passionate Victorian, 180-
197; Glickman and Schleifer, From Convent to Concert Hall, 183; and Brown, Amy Beach and
Her Chamber Music, 47.
Brown, Amy Beach and Her Chamber Music, Al.
22
23
Beach, Piano Music (1982), ii-iii; and Glickman and Schleifer, From Convent to Concert Hall,
183.
" Block, Grove Music Online.
26
Brown, Amy Beach and Her Chamber Music, 52-53; Beach/Schmidt Letters, November 4,
1913.
27
Brown, Amy Beach and Her Chamber Music, 53; unsigned article, "Mrs. Beach Plays for
Sgambati," The Musical Courier LXIV/21 (May 22, 1912), 19, New York Public Library
Clipping File.
75
Beach." Could this be that Europe was more open and accepting of women being
independent and not being so 'attached' to their husbands? It is important to note again
that at this point Beach's husband had already passed away, and in many ways she was
less constrained in her career.
The orchestral European performances were significant because they introduced
her Gaelic Symphony and Piano Concerto to Europe, which reinforced her reputation as
both a pianist and composer. The performances in 1913 with the Berlin Philharmonic
Orchestra, under the direction of Thomas Spiering, began a long-term professional

90
relationship between Spiering and Beach. This relationship continued well after Beach
returned to the United States.30
One of Germany's leading music critics, Dr. Ferdinand Pfohl, conveyed his views
on woman composers by saying, "One need only mention the names of Amelie Nikisch
and Amy Beach in order to refute the foolish prejudices concerning women-
composers."31 He also stated that for a long time it was believed that men were the
'"stronger sex'" in musical composition, but that Beach had drastically changed his
opinion. This review was written after the Hamburg performance of the Gaelic
Symphony. He also commended her talents in writing large-scale works, and continued

29
" Block, Amy Beach: Passionate Victorian, 198-212.
31
Brown, Amy Beach and Her Chamber Music, 56; unsigned article, "Amy Beach (Mrs. H. H. A.
Beach) in Hamburg," The Musical Courier (August 31, 1914), 50, translated from "American Art
in Germany," Hamburger Nachrichten (December 3, 1913), University of New Hampshire,
Scrapbook.
32
Beach) in Hamburg," The Musical Courier (August 31, 1914), 50.
76
to point out that Chopin and Hugo Wolf never attempted writing a symphony. 33 In
addition, he stated that Beach was a composer who was "a musical nature tinged with
genius". 34 Pfohl was obviously supportive of Beach as a woman composer. In another
European review Beach is said to have the "heart of a woman, but the head of a man,
with splendid constructive faculty."
When Beach was questioned about the way the German audiences reacted to her
music, she said that they were hard to win over but generous with approval of her works.
While in Europe she did not feel any prejudice against her American heritage, or the fact
that she was a woman composer. Overall, Europe was very receptive to Beach as a
composer, as well as the concept of a woman writing a symphony. When she returned to
the states she found that her European successes helped to mold her career in America
during the following decades.
In 1914 Beach returned to America as a musical heroine. She had a well-defined
reputation as an American composer and virtuoso pianist. When she returned she
already had performances scheduled in the East and Midwest and concertized at length
throughout the United States. The years 1914-1918 were the peak of her performing
career. Although she did visit Europe several times later in her life, Beach focused her
33
Beach) in Hamburg," The Musical Courier (August 31, 1914), 50.
Jenkins, The Remarkable Mrs. Beach, 76; Reviews of the Leipzig concert were translated and
summarized in the Musical Courier February 4, 1914.
Brown, Amy Beach and Her Chamber Music, 56; unsigned article, "Buonamici, Sr. Delighted
With Mrs. Beach," The Musical Courier LX1V/25 (June 19, 1912), 10, New York Public Library
Clipping File.
Block, Amy Beach: Passionate Victorian, 86-103, 180-197; Jenkins, The Remarkable Mrs.
Beach, 31'-47, 71-77; and Glickman and Schleifer, From Convent to Concert Hall, 183.
Brown, Amy Beach and Her Chamber Music, 57, 59.
Brown, Amy Beach and Her Chamber Music, 5; and Block, Grove Music Online.
11
performing in the United States from that point forward. The expansion of her reputation
as a composer to the southern and western states guaranteed her success for the rest of her
life.40
The subjects of gender and feminism have significance for Beach's Gaelic
Symphony beyond critical reception of the work. When Beach was a young girl a
woman's life was predestined regardless of her talents. The Cheney's prescription for
their daughter's life was typical: little formal education, some music lessons, and
marriage. He parents and her husband denied her the right to choose a professional
career for herself.41 As already stated, it was only after Beach's husband and mother died
that she felt like she had the freedom to be what she wanted to be as a musician.
Beach's career was enabled by her freedom from household responsibilities, as
well as the fact that she was childless. Even during her widowhood, she refused a
domestic role and had several persons who helped her with household duties, so that she
could concentrate on her work, as a man might do. Beach did however admit to being
somewhat domestic. In an interview with Etude magazine, she said that "activities I love
are writing, [studying] the piano, and [I am] very interested in housekeeping."43 She
surely experienced some tension between the two worlds, the performing world and the
wifely world.
Christine Ammer points out that in order for there to be an environment suitable
for serious work as a composer, the person must have opportunity for a sufficient
education, monetary support, and positive encouragement, both from an inner circle and
40
41
42
43
Glickman and Schleifer, From Convent to Concert Hall, 9; Armstrong, Etude (1904).
78
society as a whole. "Survival of the music produced depends on its performance,
publishing and circulation." Beach was incredibly fortunate, both as a pianist and
composer. She was well-educated and talented and was able to receive financial and
emotional assistance from individuals closest to her. She also happened to live in a time
in which there was great attention paid to a new group of individuals, women composers.
Reputable music journals allocated significant sections to discussion of women
composers, and concert societies offered complete programs of works by women
composers. Almost all of Beach's music was published soon after it was written and
most of it was performed throughout her lifetime by prominent artists, orchestras, and
choral societies throughout America and Europe.45 Beach enjoyed a success that not all
women composers, even during our own time, are able to experience in their lifetimes.
Carol Neuls-Bates states that critics of the late nineteenth century developed a
system of sexual aesthetics that analyzed music through masculine and feminine
characteristics. Feminine music was delicate and graceful and was restricted to the
smaller forms of piano music and songs. Masculine music was powerful and
intellectually "rigorous in harmony, counterpoint, and other structural logic." Operas,
symphonies, and other large-scale works were considered masculine music. As women
gradually began to write in the larger forms they were said to be venturing beyond their
realm. Beach helped to facilitate this evolution through her composition of a
symphony. As previously stated, before her time, this genre was male-dominated.
Amy Beach, Piano Music (1982), i; Block, Liner Notes, Our Musical Past; and Ammer,
Unsung, 72.
45
46
47
79
In the nineteenth century music critics used the ideas of masculinity and
femininity as ways of evaluating women's work.48 Also, if the music was considered to
have any value at all, then the value was accredited to feminine characteristics. An
example is a previously quoted comment by Hale: "Beach is 'at her best' when she
displays traces of 'grace and delicacy.'"49 Similar phrases, such as '"the ornamentation is
sensitive' and '"the melodies are charming,'" were also used.50 Another example is from
a quote by Chadwick:
When [the composer] George Wakefield Chadwick first heard Mrs. Beach's
symphony 'Gaelic', he is said to have exclaimed: 'Why was not I born a
woman?' It was the delicacy of thought and finish in her musical expression that
had struck him, an expression of true womanliness, absolute in its sincerity.
It is apparent that even though Chadwick appears to like Beach's symphony, he makes
references to her gender as he does it. According to Lucy Green in the previous quote the
woman's supposed "proximity to feeling was also cited as a positive contribution of her
gender to composition." Green also states that "the most well-received women
composers were, at the height of their achievement, recognised as masculine, the most
successful men composers alone attained the pinnacle of genius, where they could be
praised for qualities normally seen as feminine."5 Women did not have the same
'playing-field' as their male counterparts of the time. It was also more difficult for them
to achieve success in the field of performing and musical composition.
Green, Music, Gender, Education (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 98.
Green, Music, Gender, Education, 99; Philip Hale, Musical Courier (February 23, 1898), 29-
30, as cited in Bowers and Tick, (1986), 344.
50
Green, Music, Gender, Education, 99.
51
Green, Music, Gender, Education, 99; Etude (February 1904) cited in Tick 1986, p. 344.
52
53
80
Beach had several statements to make regarding women composers of her time.
In an interview in the magazine Musical America in 1917 she put forward the view that:
It is certain that in the high flights of musical creation women do not begin to
compare with men. But then, music is the superlative expression of life
experience and woman, but the very nature of her position, is denied many of the
experiences that color the life of man.5
Beach also pointed out that '"woman has indeed been handicapped and always will be at
an enforced disadvantage'" because she does not have access to the orchestra. It is
apparent the Beach was aware of the difficulties that women faced in comparison to men
in society. On the other hand she stated in another interview in 1915 that:
In regard to the position of women composers I may say that I have personally
never felt myself handicapped in any way, nor have I encountered prejudice of
any sort on account of my being a woman, and I believe that the field for musical
composition in America offers exactly the same prospects to young women as to
young men composers.56
Beach obviously appears to contradict herself when one compares these different
comments. Maybe this is because she was caught between two worlds. The
contradiction in the two previous quotes implies that being a woman meant that there was
some artistic limitations, but at the same time she was a self-assured woman who did not
perceive any obstacles in her career. Michael Anthony wrote in the Star Tribune that,
"Late in her long, productive life as a pianist and composer, Amy Beach . . . said that
being a woman hadn't held her back as a musician." This statement is another example
Beach, Piano Music (1982), i; Herbert F. Peyser, "Believes Women Composers will Rise to
Greater Heights in World Democracy," Musical America XXV/25 (April 21, 1917), 3.
55
Block, Amy Beach: Passionate Victorian, 201, from Jean Mahan Plank, "Music and the
Feminine Mind," Musical Monitor 4 (February 1915), 170.
56
Beach, Piano Music (1982), i; Edwin Hughes, "The Outlook for the Young American
Composer," Etude XXXlU/l (January 1915), 14.
57
58
Michael Anthony, Star Tribune (August 27, 2000), "Amy Beach Biography," Encyclopedia of
World Biography, http://biography.yourdictionary.com/amy-beach, accessed on June 6, 2007.
81
of Beach's confidence in her career. Beach stated the following about women
composers of her time: "The women composers of today have advanced in technique,
resourcefulness, and force." She seemed to support the other women composers of her
time and their musical advancement.
In order to understand Beach's place in the evolution of women composers, one
must be aware of the other women composers of her time. The most well-known women
composers in the nineteenth century in Europe were Fanny Hensel (1805-47) and Clara
Schumann (1819-96). These two women were known more as performers than
composers. They also had close family connections to elite musical circles.60
Two important women composers overlapping the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries were Luise Adolpha Le Beau (1850-1927) and Ethel Smyth (1858-1944)
(British).61 Luise Le Beau was "the first woman to become a successful composer
without having a professional performance career."62 She wrote over sixty-six works,
with thirty-five of them being published. In her career she had many performances all
over Europe.64 Ethel Smyth, who was also not a performer, was very much celebrated in
her lifetime. Her fame was due to her large-scale Mass in D (1891) and her many operas,
which were performed in Britain, Germany, and New York.65
Some of the other well-known women composers in the latter nineteenth century
and first half of the twentieth centuries include: the Americans Nancy Van de Vate (b.
1930), Margaret Ruthven Lang (1867-1972), Mabel Wheeler Daniels (1878-1971),
59
60
Green, Music, Gender, Education, 95-96.
62
64
Green, Music, Gender, Education, 95-96.
65
82
Eleanor Freer (1864-1942) and Ruth Crawford Seeger (1901-1953); the French
composers Lili Boulanger (1893-1918), Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979), and Cecile
Chaminade (1857-1944); the British women Elizabeth Maconchy (1907-1994) Elisabeth
Lutyens (1906-1983), and Mary Wurm (1860-1938); the Austrian composers Alma
Mahler (1879-1964) and Mathilde Kralik von Meyerswalden (1857-1944), and Henrietta
Fahrbach (1851-1923); and the German women Philippina Schick (1893-1970) and
Baroness Bertha von Brukenthal (1846-1908).66
It is interesting that Beach's earlier works were thought of as modern and were
accepted with eagerness. Although there were some somewhat negative reviews by
several New York critics later in her life, she was extremely successful in every genre she
ventured, and according to Jeanell Wise Brown, she did in fact triumph over gender
discrimination.67 Brown also states that Beach was a significant contributor to the
evolution of American music as she lived during a time when women were not easily
acknowledged or received into the realm of musical composition. In addition to this
accomplishment, Beach made great advancements towards improving the image of
women composers in America. Her symphony and mass were major feats for an
American woman living in the late 1800s and early 1900s.68
Beach spent the last years of her life in New York so that she could be closer to
the publishers and concert life there. Her summers were divided between the MacDowell
Colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire and her home at Centerville on Cape Cod. She
Green, Music, Gender, Education, 104; Aaron I. Cohen International Encyclopedia of Women
Composers, 2d. ed. (New York: Books and Music, 1987), 66-67, 96, 151, 256, 290, 292;
and Glickman and Schleifer, From Convent to Concert Hall, 175-185.
68
83
died on December 27, 1944. Many obituaries mentioned her Mass as well as her Gaelic
Symphony.
Beach's compositions began to decrease in popularity towards the end of her life,
possibly because they seemed out-of-date or old-fashioned in the middle of the twentieth-
century. Her works went out of print and were nearly completely forgotten after her
death.71 In reality, she was put aside after her death, similarly to J. S. Bach.72 To
celebrate Beach's seventy-fifth birthday, Elena de Sayn, a critic and violinist from
Washington, D.C., arranged two retrospective concerts of her music. There was a
revival of interest in her music in the 1970s and 1980s, as scholarly publications and
recordings began to appear. By the 1990s there were dissertations, more recordings, and
the landmark of Block's biography, all of which helped revive the forgotten composer.
Since then, more of Beach's works have been published, and currently almost all of them
are now available.74 Although the Gaelic Symphony was neglected after Beach's death, it
now has a relatively strong presence on the musical scene. It was performed on January
9, 2000 as part of the American Composers Orchestra's Roots concert. This event helped
reestablish the work's significance as an early nationalist composition by a leader in the
evolution of American music.
Glickman and Schleifer, From Convent to Concert Hall, 183; and Brown, Amy Beach and Her
Chamber Music, 106; unsigned article, "Mrs. Beach, Leading Composer Dies at 77," Musical
America 65 (January 10, 1945), 24, New York Public Library Clipping File.
71
72
73
74
75
84
In conclusion, one can see that with the exception of a small number of critics,
Beach's Gaelic Symphony was well received in the United States as well as Europe. This
is an admirable feat, as it was the first successful work of its kind written by a woman.
Beach showed a lot of courage in attempting the endeavor.
85
Chapter 5: Conclusion
Amy Beach died of a heart illness in New York City on December 27, 1944. Her
will states that the royalties from her work should be donated to the MacDowell Colony.
In Beach's obituary in the New York Times in 1944 it portrayed her as '"one of the first
American women to win recognition as a composer of classical music."' 2 This simply
restates Beach's success as a highly gifted composer of art music.
At the time of Beach's death she was one of only a few women composers who
were taken seriously for their abilities in musical composition. In fact, she was at the top
of the list. In her lifetime, she encouraged other women composers to be successful in
the craft, legitimizing their efforts. She did not see herself specifically as an advocate of
Women's Rights, but she instead believed that '"the value of one's accomplishments
should determine one's acceptance, not one's sex.'" Today Beach's music is still
celebrated by audiences around the world for the beauty of her intricate melodies and its
emotional content. Her contributions to the era of romantic music are immense. For
those persons who know Beach's music, they realize that Beach's accomplishments
represent the idea that good music is not defined by the sex of the composer, but instead
upon the musical ideas and mastery of the craft.5
Beach was open-minded about the composition and evolution of music. In 1912
Beach had the following to say about her opinion on the new trends in music:
'Block, Amy Beach: Passionate Victorian, 295, 297.

2
Beach, Piano Music (1928), iii; New York Times (December 28, 1944).
3
4
86
There are no absolute or eternal boundary lines in the expression of beauty and
life. The underlying principles of truth live on, but the very momentum of the
times in which we live is carrying us into new expression of them by new
formulas of tone, color, and design.6
This shows that Beach was an "eclectic romantic composer" and not the inventor of a
modern, progressive compositional style. On the other hand one could argue that Beach
was more traditional in her compositional techniques, as they clearly reflect elements of
Brahms, Dvorak, Liszt, Wagner, and Berlioz, as well as other composers. She displayed
musical integrity and should be valued and honored for her contributions to our American
musical landscape. Beach's view on music of her time was: "I do not deprecate the
study of the music of today; it belongs to the time, like its painting and literature, and it
brings us more securely by contrast to the hidden beauties of the old composers."
During most of Beach's career women did not have the right to vote. Yet
according to Jeanell Wise Brown Beach was "a completely normal woman, not a walking
copy of late nineteenth-century myths about the 'proper place' and 'roles' for females."
What Amy Beach achieved in her lifetime was independent of her gender.10 "She early
became a largely self-taught musician, both as pianist and composer." Her symphony
and mass were extraordinary accomplishments for an American woman in the late 1800s
Brown, Amy Beach and Her Chamber Music, 331; and Lehman, The Flute in American Music.
7
8
Brown, Amy Beach and Her Chamber Music, 334; and William Armstrong, "New Gems in Old
Classics," The Etude XXII/2 (February 1904), 51-52.
9
Brown, Amy Beach and Her Chamber Music, xxx, (Foreword by William C. Loring, Jr., Ph. D.,
Bethesda, Maryland).
10
Brown, Amy Beach and Her Chamber Music, xxxi.
"Brown, Amy Beach and Her Chamber Music, xxx.
87
and early 1900s. The statement has been made that '"her music is of a type that will
1^
live long after her."' The last few decades can attest to this statement.
As explored throughout this study, Amy Beach was a highly gifted musical
prodigy who, although she received some formal musical training, was primarily a self-
taught composer. She was regarded as being the most talented out of all of her
colleagues in the Second New England School of Composition. Her symphony is the
first work of its kind composed by an American woman that was performed anywhere in
the world.14 Despite the expected issue with gender, Beach received mainly positive
responses to her Gaelic Symphony. The analysis of the symphony presented here
suggested that the work was heavily influenced by Dvorak's Symphony No. 9, amongst
other compositions, and that the thematic material is primarily derived from Gaelic folk
tunes.
On July 9, 2000 the Boston Pops paid tribute to Amy Beach at their famous Hatch
Shell. Her name was added to the granite wall on 'The Shell.' It is now linked to 86
other composers such as Beethoven, Bach, Handel, Chopin, Debussy, and Edward

13
Brown, Amy Beach and Her Chamber Music, 107; and Harriette Brower, "A Personal Interview
with Mrs. H. H. A. Beach, American Composer-Pianist," The Musical Observer XII (May 1915),
273-274.
14
Ammer, Unsung, 79, 86; Alice Mary Smith (1839-84), an English composer, had written a
symphony, as well as four orchestral overtures, five cantatas, a clarinet concerto, and many
smaller works. Louis Farrenc (1804-75) of France wrote mostly keyboard and chamber music
but also produced three symphonies and two overtures, and Augusta Holmes (1847-1903), also
French, wrote several large orchestral works but no symphony as such. As previously stated,
Beach's Gaelic Symphony was the first symphony written by an American woman, but it was not
the first orchestral work written by a woman performed by the Boston symphony. That credit is
given to Margaret Ruthven Lang, with her Dramatic Overture, Op. 12. It was performed under
Arthur Nikisch in 1893. Later that year her Witchis overture was performed in Chicago by
Theodore Thomas's orchestra.
88
MacDowell. Amy Beach is the only woman composer to be thus honored.15 This is
another example of how Beach has been the 'exception to the rule' and how she has
defied the confines of gender bias.
Despite the underlying fact that she was a woman in a man's profession and
composing in a male-dominated genre, she proved that a woman can be just as talented,
successful and artistic as any male composer. She was a prodigy born ahead of her time.
Although once she was married she became deprived of her full potential as a performing
musician, later in life, primarily because of her husband's death, she was able to be
completely free as a musician, a composer, and a person. Despite contemporary social
and gender biases, Mrs. Beach was able to flourish and be a successful composer and a
musician. She was an ingenious woman whose legend and imprint on the musical world
will not be forgotten, as she was a pioneer in the world of women composers. She
challenged women composers throughout the world to compose in any genre of their
choosing, despite their gender. The Gaelic Symphony is a pristine example of a well-
written, late-romantic symphony that is able to hold its ground next to the other
symphonies written by male composers of its time. Her Gaelic Symphony is also an
excellent example of her feminism. It was an attempt for her to walk into uncharted
territory, do something revolutionary, and to walk out having mastered the abilities of a
'male-composer.' She did in fact become 'one of the boys.'
Ernest Sabine, compiler, "Amy Beach," in Harvard Square Library,

http://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/UU_Composers/Amv_Beach.htmK accessed August 20,
2008.
89
vo Table 1.1: Analysis of Gaelic Symphony
Movement Measures Key Form Themes Meter Tempo Instrumentation
Marking
I 1-555 E minor Sonata Form From Beach's 6/8 Allegro con 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets in
songs and a fuoco A, 2 bassoons, 4 horns in F, 2
Gaelic dance (J.=120) trumpets in F, 3 trombones &
tune bass-tuba, timpani in B, D, E
and strings
I 1-16 E minor Sonata form: 6/8 Allegro con Woodwinds, horns, strings
Introduction fuoco
I 17-106 E minor Exposition 1st Theme: from 6/8 Allegro con Theme first in upper brass; full
Beach's song fuoco orchestra
"Dark is the
Night"- "A wild
wind shakes the
wilder sea."
I 107-146 G Major Exposition 2nd Theme: from 6/8 Allegro con Theme first in clarinet and
Beach's song fuoco: Poco woodwinds; full orchestra
"Dark is the piii tranquillo
Night"- "Where
are the hours that
came to me, so
beautiful, so
bright."
Marking
I 147-166 G Major Exposition Closing Theme: 6/8 Allegro con Woodwinds, horns, and strings
Dance tune- fuoco
"Conchobhar ua
Raghallaigh
Cluann'V'Connor
O'Reilly of
Clounish."
I 167-326 Various Development Development of 6/8 Allegro con Full orchestra
1st and 2nd fuoco
Themes
I 327-402 E minor Recapitulation 1st Theme 6/8 Allegro con Woodwinds, horns, strings
fuoco
I 403-438 Ab Major Recapitulation 2nd Theme 6/8 Allegro con Woodwinds, then full orchestra
fuoco: Poco
piu tranquillo
1 439-466 E minor Recapitulation Closing Theme 6/8 Allegro con In woodwinds, then full orchestra
fuoco
I 467-555 E minor Coda 1 st Theme 6/8, Allegro con In brass, then woodwinds; full
then fuoco orchestra
cut
time
Marking
11 1-213 F major Mono- Based almost 12/8 Alia 2 flutes, 1 piccolo, 2 oboes, 1
thematic entirely on Siciliana; English horn, 2 clarinets in B-
/Reverse Gaelic love song Allegro flat, 2 bassoons, 4 horns in F,
Scherzo "Goirtin vivace triangle, timpani in F, G & C,
Ornadh,"/ "The (J.=40); and strings
Little Field of
Barley." (J=132)
II 1-4 F major Introduction 12/8 Alia Siciliana Horns and strings
II 5-18 F major Siciliana Presentation of 12/8 Alia Siciliana Woodwinds, then horn added
Gaelic theme
II 19-167 F major Scherzo Variations on 2/4 Allegro vivace Violins, then full orchestra
Gaelic theme
II 168-194 Db Major, Siciliana Continued 12/8 Alia Siciliana English horn, then woodwinds
thenF variations on and full orchestra
Major theme
II 195-213 F Major Scherzo Continued 2/4 Allegro vivace Full orchestra

variations on
theme
Marking
III 1-146 E minor Sonata form Based on two 6/4 Lento con 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets in
Celtic folk tunes: molto A, 1 bass clarinet in A, 2
"Paisdin espressione bassoons, 4 horns and 2
Fuinne'V "The (J=72) trumpets in F, 3 trombones and
Lively Child" bass tuba, timpani in B and £,
and strings
"Cushlamac-
hree." and "Cia
an Bealach a
Deachaidh
Si,"/"Which way
did she go?"
III 1-19 E minor Introduction 6/4 Lento con Horns and winds
molto
espressione
III 20-39 E minor; Exposition 1st Theme: 6/4 Lento con Solo cello, solo violin, strings;
G major "Paisdin Fuinne'V molto then full orchestra
"The Lively espressione
Child"
/"Cushlamac-
hree." (and part of
2nd theme)
/

Marking
III 40-50 B Major Exposition 2nd Theme: "Cia 6/4 Piu mosso Theme first in brass; full
an Bealach a (J=84) orchestra
Deachaidh
Si,'7"Which way
did she go?"
III 51-128 Various Development Based on 1st and 6/4 Piu mosso; Full orchestra
2nd Themes Lento con
molto
espressione at
m.60
III 129-132 Unclear Recapitulation 1st Theme 6/4 (J=66) Bass clarinet/clarinet with strings
III 133-146 E minor Recapitulation 2nd Theme 6/4 a. u

Strings, woodwinds, horn
Marking
IV 1-563 E minor; Sonata form Beach's original 2/2 Allegro di 2 flutes, 2 oboes, clarinets in A,
concludes themes molto (J=132) 2 bassoons, 4 horns in F, 2
inE trumpets in F, 3 trombones,
major tuba, timpani in F-sharp, B,
and D, and strings
IV 1-106 E minor, Exposition 1st Theme: 2/2 Allegro di Full orchestra
thenC Fragment of first molto
major movement drawn
from "Dark is the
Night."
IV 107-150 B major Exposition 2nd Theme; also 2/2 Poco piu lento First played by the violas
based on first (J=100);
movement
Allegro di
molto
IV 151-250 Various Development 1st and 2nd themes 2/2 Allegro di Full orchestra
are used together molto
IV 251-340 A major Recapitulation 1st Theme 2/2 Allegro di Full orchestra
molto
IV 341-400 G major Recapitulation 2nd Theme 2/2 Allegro di Full orchestra
molto
IV 401-563 E minor; Coda 1st and 2nd themes 2/2 Allegro di Full orchestra; brass fanfares at
E major molto end of movement
(atm.
483)
Table 1.2: Comparison of Recordings
Movement Measures Beach's Beach's Chandos/ Bridge/ Naxos/
Tempo Metronome Jarvi /Detroit Krueger/Royal Schermerhorn/
Marking Marking Symphony Philharmonic Nashville Symphony
1 1-555 Allegro con (J.=120) (fluctuates between (J.=112) (J.=120)

fuoco J.=110or 112)
II 1-18 Alia Siciliana (J.=40) (fluctuates between (mm. 1-4 (mm. 1-4
J.=42-48) J.=40);(mm. 5-18 J.=42);(mm. 5-18
J.=46) J.=48)
II 19-167 Allegro vivace (J=132) (fluctuates between (fluctuates between (J=132)

J=126-132) J=116-118)
II 168-194 Alia Siciliana (J.=40) (J.=46) (fluctuates between (fluctuates between

J.=38-40) J.=42-48)
II 195-213 Allegro vivace (J=132) (J=128) (J= 126-128) (J)=132) v
M3
III 1-39 Lento con (J=72) (fluctuates between (fluctuates between (J=72)
molto J=72-76) J=60-72)
espressione
III 40-59 Piii mosso (J=84) (fluctuates between (J=80 or slower) (J=84)
J=94-98)
III 60-105 Lento con (J=72) (fluctuates between (fluctuates between (J=72)
molto J-80-92) J=60-72)
espressione
III 106-128 (rehearsal G) 0=72) (fluctuates between xxxx (J=72)

J=70-76)
III 129-146 (rehearsal I) (J-66) (fluctuates between (less than J=56) 0-66)
J=62-66)
IV 1-106 Allegro di (J=132) (fluctuates between (J=120 or slower) (a little less than J=132
molto J=132-140) and is probably closer
toJ=128orl30)
IV 107-150 Poco piu lento (J=100) (J=100) (J=98) (J=100)
IV 151-340 Allegro di (J=132) (fluctuates between (J=126) (Approximately J=l 16)

molto J=132-140)
IV 341-400 Allegro di (J=100) (J=100) XXXX (J=100)
molto
IV 401-482 Allegro di (J=132) (J=132-134) (J=126) (J=128-130)

molto
IV 483-514 Ritmo di (re (J=100) (J=100) (J=98 or slower) (J=110)

battute
IV 515-563 Allegro di <J=132) (J=132) (J=126) (Approximately J=128)
molto
Appendix 1
Beach's Analysis of Gaelic Symphony
The following analysis is Beach's own analysis of her symphony:1
I. Allegro con fuoco (6/8). Orchestra: 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets in A, 2 bassoons,

four horns and two trumpets in F, three trombones & bass-tuba, kettledrum in B, D, & E,
and strings.2
The movement begins pp with a murmuring chromatic figure which is extensively
used throughout as an accompaniment to the principal theme [meas. 1-21]. It is first
given very softly by the strings, gradually increasing in force and fullness of
instrumentation as it ascends higher and higher until the full orchestra ushers in a portion
of the first theme, used as horn and trumpet calls [meas. 13-25]. A subsidiary legato
phrase in the woodwind against a pizzicato accompaniment in the strings [meas. 26-35]
leads to the murmuring figure now associated with the first theme in its entirety. The
latter is divided among the horns, woodwind instruments, and trumpets and is always
accompanied by the soft rustling of the strings. The last half of the theme is at once
repeated by the violins in octaves, with a richly-harmonized accompaniment for wind and
brass instruments. A full close on the tonic is preceded by a measure of ritardando in 2/2
time, which will be found considerably extended in the Coda [meas. 69-71]. A loud horn
call leads through the key of the dominant to a second subsidiary [theme; meas. 71-75],
soft and delicate at first, [it] afterwards works up to a climax for full orchestra [meas. 73-
100]. After a fragment of the first theme played by the horns, the murmuring strings
introduce and accompany the second theme in G major, "poco piu tranquillo," given out
by the solo clarinet [meas. 107-29]. It is immediately followed by a modified version
played by the violins in octaves, leading to a conclusion theme in G major of Gaelic folk-
song character [meas. 131-64].3 This is announced by the oboe, answered canonically by
the flute, and finally dies away in the strings, bringing the first part of the movement to a
close. There is no repeat, and the free fantasia begins with resumption of the chromatic
murmuring by the strings, tempo primo. Both of the main themes, as well as the
chromatic counter-subject and the subsidiaries are worked out at great length and with
minute detail of augmentation, diminution, and double counterpoint. From a gentle
beginning the full orchestra is finally employed in all the strength until there comes a
rapid downward arpeggio in the strings followed by a few bars continually decreasing
force, and then a measure of silence. A short recitative for the clarinet, accompanied at
intervals by the rustling strings, leads to the recapitulation, which bears a close
resemblance in its development to the first part of the movement, save in the
modulations. Here the second theme occurs in A-flat major, and the conclusion theme in
E major. This theme is now extended by the violins after its appearances in the flute and
'"Mrs. Beach wrote out in longhand the following analysis of her symphony. She intended to include 28
musical examples, to which she referred by successive numbers buy which she and Jenkins did not supply.
The editor has added the probable measure numbers of those examples according to the orchestral score
published by Arthur P. Schmidt of Boston in 1897 and reproduced by G. K. Hall in 1992 in American
Orchestral Music: Late Nineteenth-Centvry Boston, edited by Sam Dennison, Three Centuries of
American Music, 10."; Jenkins, The Remarkable Mrs. Beach, 173.
2
99
oboe (the order is reversed from that in the first part) [meas. 439-63]. A few bars, molto
piano, lead to the Coda, which is long and contrapuntally brought to the maximum of
fullness of tone. Near its close there are eight bars in 2/2 time (suggested by that one
previously found in the first part), which will again appear with further modifications in
the last movement of the symphony [meas. 539-46]. Nine bars of 6/8 time,^, in which
the murmuring figure and the horn-call are prominent, bring the first movement to an
end. 4
II. Alia Siciliana (12/8); Allegro vivace (2/4). Orchestra: 2 flutes, 1 piccolo, 2 oboes, 1
English horn, 2 clarinets in B-flat, 2 bassoons, 4 horns in F, triangle, kettledrums in F, G
& C, and strings.5
With four introductory bars, in which the horn and strings prefigure the
appearance of the principal theme, the second movement in F major begins. The melody
is played by the oboe, accompanied by clarinets and bassoons, the flute and horns being
added in one phrase where a crescendo is demanded [meas. 5-18]. At its close, the tempo
and time change to "Allegro vivace, 2/4," and after a short free prelude of trills in the first
violins and chromatic pizzicato chords in the other strings, the rapid movement continues
in F major with a variation of the Siciliana theme played by the violins [meas. 36-55].
This new subject is very fully developed and modulates into many keys, major and
minor. Fragments of the original theme appear in the minor, played by the French horn,
clarinet, oboe, and English horn in turn, to a rapid accompaniment in the strings [meas.
56-74] 6
After a gradual crescendo "poco a poco piu animato," a sudden upward chromatic
rush of the wood instruments, followed by an abrupt chord, ff, and a bar of rest, bring a
return of the Siciliana in its original tempo. The key, however, is changed to D-flat
major, and the melody is played by the English horn against a high tremendous
background of divided violins, rhythmically punctuated by pizzicato chords in the low
strings. The phrase does not end in that key, but soon modulates to F major, where the
oboe takes the theme as at the beginning, with a counter-theme played by the English
horn and the pizzicato chords continued in the strings. A crescendo leads to a fully
scored climax, then a dialogue between the two clarinets, followed by one between the
oboe and English horn, which gradually fades in intensity until a few measures of the
rapid Allegro, very softly played, complete the movement."
III. Lento con molto espressione (6/4). Orchestra: 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets in A, one
bass clarinet in A, 2 bassoons, 4 horns and 2 trumpets in F, 3 trombones & bass tuba,
o
kettledrum in B and E, and strings.

A short introduction, founded upon a fragment of the first theme, forms the
beginning of the 3rd movement. It is worked out by the horns and wind instruments,
among which are prominent a sombre trio of clarinets, frequently heard throughout the
movement. A long descending scale of soft pizzicato notes in the celli and contrabassi
introduces a cadenza for the solo violin, perfectly free in tempo until it is finally joined
4
5
Jenkins, The Remarkable Mrs. Beach, MA.
6
7
100
by the other strings, which are muted. Here the first theme enters, played by the solo
cello, to which is added later an accompanying phrase for the solo violin, with the
harmonic background supplied by the muted strings. The first half of the melody closes
on the tonic, and the answering phrase being taken up by the oboe in G major, with an
accompaniment of wind instruments and strings, finally reaching a fully scored climax.
Four bars of decrescendo, in which the two solo instruments are supported only by the
muted strings, bring a pp close in E minor [meas.35-39]. A brisk reminiscence of the
introduction now appears in C major if, piii mosso) leading at once to B minor and its
dominant, F-sharp major, thence to B major. In this key a short and vigorous new theme
is given out by the trumpets and violins, in canonic imitation, with the addition of the full
orchestra including trombones and tuba [meas. 44-50]. Then follows an extended
development in single and double counterpoint of the first and 2nd themes [meas. 51-82].
A portion of the introduction, including a new cadenza for the solo violin, ushers in the
second theme in E major, which is here extended far beyond its former length. Its
character is wholly changed by its manner of rendition; instead of trumpets and
trombones with all their brilliancy, we now hear only the strings playing as softly as
possible (the mutes have been removed), and the folk-song character of the melody is at
last clearly apparent. It lasts through but five bars, when it ends on the tonic and is at
once repeated, with certain changes, in the woodwind and horns, to which are
subsequently added the strings [meas. 93-105].9
After another gentle close on the tonic, a long working-out is begun, at a slightly
increased tempo, during which the second theme is still further extended and enriched by
the clarinet [meas. 122ff]. The celli and bass clarinet play the theme, which is answered
canonically by the first clarinet with a soft accompaniment of high tremulous strings and
low subdued horns. One phrase which I have indicated by the [symbol for] "marcato" (in
[the example just given]) is repeated many times by the violins and wind instruments,
reinforced by the full brass choir; the intensity of expression and volume of tone
constantly augmented, until a strong climax is reached, followed by a gradual
diminuendo. The violins descend step by step in triplet notes from the highest point of
the discord until they serve as a low, soft, syncopated accompaniment to the horn which
plays the "marcato" phrase in the minor [meas. 125-127].10
The first theme is once more heard in the bass clarinet against the low shuddering
tremolo of the strings, whose harmonies have become strange and gloomy. The last
return of the second theme (now in the minor), softly played by the strings, followed by a
series of obbligato phrases for the solo violin, solo cello and bass clarinet, lead to the
close of the movement "molto Adagio e pp" [meas. 129-46]. n
IV. Allegro di molto (2/2). Orchestra: flutes, oboes, clarinets in A, bassoons, horns &
trumpets in F, trombones, tuba, kettledrums in F-sharp, B, & D, and strings.
The Finale is in sonata-form and opens at once with the first theme given out by
the full orchestra, ending in C major [meas. 1-9]. A sudden change from^toj^p ushers
9
10
"Jenkins, The Remarkable Mrs. Beach, 175.
12
101
in a rapid, broken accompaniment figure in the strings, which continues through twelve
bars, and then serves as a background to a more extended version of the first theme
played by the wind and brass instruments, in various combinations [meas. 9-25]. The
subject is fully developed, leading through several keys and with many rhythmical
changes in the melody. There is no subsidiary theme or phrase that is not the direct
outcome of the principal subject in some of its modified forms. One of these is played by
the clarinet, canonically answered by the horn, to a simple harmonic accompaniment in
the strings [meas. 75-83].14
The second theme occurs in B major (poco piu lento) and is more melodic in
character than the first. It is given by a composite voice, made up of the cello, viola, and
bassoon tones in unison, to which are added horns where an increase of power is
demanded. The accompaniment is supplied by the strings, in syncopated rhythms [meas.
107-27]. This theme is also fully worked out, and used, in connection with the first, to
close the first part of the movement, there being neither conclusion-theme nor repeat.
The free fantasia is comparatively short, owing to the extensive development of the
themes when first presented. The second theme undergoes many harmonic changes, in
its various combinations and alterations with the first [meas. 152-274]. At the climax of
tonal fullness the two themes are simultaneously employed [meas. 251-61].15
A resumption of the rapid, broken accompaniment phrase in the strings brings the
Recapitulation, which is regular in form though shorter than the first part of the
movement. The second theme occurs here in G major, played by the violins in octaves,
supported by a syncopated accompaniment in the wind instruments, horns, and low
strings. At its close, it is repeated insofar as its form is concerned, by the celli and horns,
with additions by wind and strings, but with its harmonic coloring completely changed
[meas. 361-81].16
It modulates through many keys, finally reaching the tonic through G major, by
means of a very quiet phrase for the strings and the clarinet in its low register.
The Coda begins very softly, with fragments of both themes played by horns and
low strings, against a tremolo of the violins. A crescendo soon follows, and after/is
reached the full orchestra is almost continually employed, to the end. The second theme
returns in E major for a third rendering, in an augmented form, given by all the strings
(except the contrabassi) in unison. Above this is played the first theme by the flutes,
oboes, and trumpets as a countersubject, the harmony being supplied by the wind and
brass choirs [meas. 480-531]. From this point until the end the key of E major is
maintained, and with fanfares of trumpets and trombones, surrounded by rapid^f figures
in the strings, and full chords in the wind instruments, the symphony is brought to an
energetic close.
13
This theme will be recognized as a repetition of the phrase in 2/2 time previously heard near the
close of the first movement.
14
l5
16
17
18
102
Appendix 2
Music's Ten Commandments
As Given for Young Composers
Mrs. H. H. A. Beach
Spare neither time nor strength in the perfecting of the technic of composition, beginning
with the simplest rudiments. Your musical material must be perfectly under control as is
language in the case of a writer of literature. One must never be compelled to pause in
the development of an idea through lack of knowledge of spelling or grammar.
Begin with small things-ideas that can be expressed in small form.
Study how best to develop all the possibilities of a small form. A small gem may
be just as brilliantly cut as one weighing many carats.
Learn to employ as much variety in form as possible. Above all things, avoid
becoming stereotyped in the expression of melodic, harmonic or rhythmic ideas.
Subject yourself to endless labor in the analysis of works by the old masters,
especially using, as illustration for the form upon which you are now engaged, a master's
work in the same form. There is no better way to learn how to write a fugue than by
dissecting one by Bach, preferably one from "The Well-Tempered Clavichord."
Begin early to study the scores of stringed [sic] quartet music by Haydn and
Mozart and the early Beethoven. It is well to select one work and subject it to the most
careful analysis, studying it until it is learned by heart.
Use every possible opportunity to hear a good stringed quartet, if possible at
rehearsals, as well as at concerts. Take a score of the composition and study it while it is
being played.
Hear as much choral music as possible. The study of voice writing, as illustrated
in the master works, is of the greatest importance.
The crowning glory of music study is familiarity with the master works in
symphony, played by a fine, modern symphony orchestra. Carry into the study of
symphonic compositions the same thoroughness with which you have analyzed works for
the piano, stringed quartet and chorus, beginning with the simpler and earlier composers.
Remember that technic is valuable only as a means to an end. You must first
have something to say-something which demands expression from the depths of your
soul. If you feel deeply and know how to express what you feel, you make others feel.
Block, Amy Beach: Passionate Victorian, 87; Los Angeles Examiner (June 28, 1915) 5; Reprinted as
"How Mrs. Beach Does It," Musical Courier (July 7, 1915).
103
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Analysis Amy Beach

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Analysis of Amy Cheney Beach's

Gaelic Symphony, Op. 32

Kathryn Amelia Kuby, D.M.A.

University of Connecticut, 2011

colleagues in the Second New England School of Composition.

well as a promoter of her compositions.

composed by an American woman. It is also the first symphony composed by an

symphony by an American composer to quote folk songs as thematic material.

composer. The Gaelic Symphony is a pristine example of a late-romantic symphony that

recordings of the work.

Gaelic Symphony, Op. 32

Kathryn Amelia Kuby

B.M., Belmont University, 1998

M.M., University of North Texas, 2002

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the

Requirements for the Degree of

Doctorate of Musical Arts

All rights reserved

INFORMATION TO ALL USERS

Kathryn Amelia Kuby

Doctor of Musical Arts Dissertation

Analysis of Amy Cheney Beach's

Gaelic Symphony, Op. 32

Kathryn Amelia Kuby, B.M., M.M.

Major Advisor ^\-?/A-£o ^^U, ^ T >

Associate Advisor I^TfC jVWy^

Chapter 2: Beach as a Composer 9

Chapter 3: Analysis of Gaelic Symphony 23

Chapter 4: Reception and Gender 70

Table 1.1: Analysis of Gaelic Symphony 90

Table 1.2: Comparison of Recordings 96

Appendix 1: Beach's Analysis of Gaelic Symphony 99

Appendix 2: Music's Ten Commandments 103

successful at such a young age, especially in the late nineteenth-century.

Block, Grove Music Online.

Beach married widower Henry Harris Aubrey Beach on December 2, 1885. He

to her husband.14 Amy followed this paradigm as Dr. Beach's wife.

their marriage to charitable causes.16 In place of performing she was to focus on

instead, a dutiful wife to Dr. Beach.18

music "Mrs. H. H. A. Beach" throughout her entire life.26

excellent examples of her early period of musical composition.

score was published in Leipzig in 1897 by the Boston-based publisher, Arthur P.

'Gaelic' Symphony, http://www.americancomposers.org/beach_article.htm. (1999), accessed

trombone, tuba, triangle, tympani, and strings.32

level of "'man-tone'" music. Composing a symphony meant that a conductor and

Beach was bold to undertake this mission.

symphony to be composed by an American woman, and the first such work to be

performed by an American orchestra. 40 It is also the first symphony composed by an

American woman to be performed anywhere in the world. 41 Although it has been

' Jenkins, The Remarkable Mrs. Beach, 37.

Symphony No. 9 that will explored in this study.

The Gaelic Symphony is an ambitious and extended work, and is characteristic of

surprising for a self-taught composer.45

This investigation of the Gaelic Symphony will be primarily historical in nature,

formal training as a composer and pianist ended.

herself composition, orchestration, and fugue technique by studying the masters of

Berlioz and Francois-Auguste Gevaert from French to English.4 Beach continued to

counterpoint was by writing out sections of The Well-Tempered Clavier in order to

pianist was monitored by William Mason, Percy Goetschius, H. W. Longfellow, Oliver

Wendell Holmes, and Henry Harris Aubrey Beach.7

"most frequently performed American composer of her generation." Many of Beach's

Haydn Society and the Kneisel Quartet.10

avoided new compositional trends such as Impressionism and atonality. Although