Spring Symphonies, No 72 - Amy Beach: Symphony in E flat "Gaelic"


Amy Beach (1867 - 1944) lived through an extraordinary age in American and European history.  She was a composer, teacher and pianist of note. Her path as a composer was largely self-determined and born out of an intensive dissection of the music she heard and then studied in her home, Boston, Massachusetts.  Her husband was supportive of her work and this symphony provided her breakthrough into the company of the then active set of US composers that included Chadwick, Parker and McDowell. Her output was prodigious and varied throughout her career and even before this symphony, her Mass in E flat had been highly praised. She was also notably the composer who challenged Dvorak’s assertion in 1892 that women were fine as performers but as composers “I am afraid the ladies cannot help us much. They have not the creative power.” Amongst many other works - this symphony proves him wrong.

It’s perhaps worth noting that this is one of the best symphonies of it’s age to come out of the United States and since we now know many more symphonies by women, it still remains a leading light in that neglected categorisation too.  Like most symphonies by female composers, it suffers through from being seldom played in concert and seldom recorded.  The recordings of this work are available are good and more importantly varied.  They illustrate a depth to this work and it’s great potential to replace the repetitive litany of Dvorak and Brahms symphonies on concert programmes.  The public conservatism about their classical diet is I think a cause for concern.  In this insistence, the lack of “air time” for this symphony is also a major problem in the understanding of the male dominance of classical music - both creation and performance.  This has got to stop - it has turned this music much into a darker place than it should have been. Amy Beach was a very successful composer - she bought a house with the royalties raised from one song, Ecstasy (1892).  There’s no reason to suppose her work would be less popular now IF it were heard.  Shame to say, it’s never been given at the Proms and no work by her has been played since 1914. 

After her husband died in 1910, Beach travelled more as a performer of her own works, in particular she worked in Germany and collected scores for further study.  She left Germany in 1914 to return to the States and stayed there the rest of her life there, aside from a long trip to Italy in late 1928 where she heard and praised Respighi’s Feste Romane (if only that work were more symphonic).  Back home Beach earned a living as a composer and a musical educator.  She devoted her summers composing at the MacDowell colony where, following her lead, more women composers were co-residents.  She retired in 1940 and died 4 years later in New York but is buried next to her husband in Boston.

Her symphony was written between 1894 and 1896 which makes it contemporaneous with The Stars and Stripes, Rachmaninov 1 and Mahler 3 - it’s not like any of those.  It’s in E minor alongside Dvorak 9, Tchaikovsky 5 and Brahms 4 - ostensibly it is like some of those.  One gets the slight odour of previous styles now and then but I want to put those aside because it didn’t help Brahms to be compared to Beethoven so the rest of what I say is with comparison.  The work has that important quality of not revealing all of it’s best ideas at once.  Like many masterpieces the integration of the elements is deftly and subtlety obvious only on repeat listening.  But since it hardly ever gets recorded let alone performed in the concert hall, the chance for people to get under the skin of the work have been limited until now.  YouTube comes to our rescue.

I’m enthused by it’s flow - tightly woven passages, moving quickly from idea to idea and with ease. Copious use of melody and colours. The orchestration is not extravagant but very effective - there’s a lot going on as the movements build up.  It has for my money a supremely admirable of not resting on it’s laurels and ramming good tunes down our throats.  It progresses gladly and with generous ideas which are developed with confidence in its material which is derived from older, “folk” sources like Dvorak’s final symphony which was  premiered in 1893 in New York.  Beach rejected the Dvorak’s somewhat shaky attribution of his melodies to the Native Americans, arguing that her forebears were - as so many on the East Coast - Irish, Scots and other Europeans.  Her inspiration came from a book of Irish folk-songs, hence the name of the work, Gaelic.  This is a symphony first, with allusions to the folk material. It’s worth saying that this symphony is listed in some places as her second – I can’t find much evidence that there is an earlier work but would love to know more if readers know better.

The start of her symphony is mystical swirl  from which a bold tune emerges, Allegro con Fuoco.  The movement sets off at quite a pace and is full of a bracing confidence. There is nothing cautious or reticent in the expression.  The tunes are plentiful, well proportioned and never over stay their welcome.  And with such risk material its the movement between the the moods which are critical. These transitions have an easy charm about them.  The development section has clout and tension delivered through some formidable brass writing.  The coda when it comes is gripping - brilliantly done. As first movement’s go this is a substantial example. There’s a great energy about the movement (and the piece) coupled with a this familiar melodic material which readily betrays it’s roots sometimes but such is her skill often it’s hidden.

The second movement, which Beach labels Alla Sciliana - Allegro Vivace has an impish character all of it’s own: this is where Beach’s lightness of touch plays well.  It’s not quite a scherzo and trio - the central section is much slower than we might expect of the age, but it is a colourful contrasting movement.  There’s a light and delicate but propulsive flavour to music at times, and the slower section is gently orchestrated and down to earth with an almost solemn tread.  The movement has bags of delicate beauty and genial charm. 

The third movement is a Lento qualified “with much expression”.  A solo violin comes to the fore in the exposition of another great melody, it is joined by as second and then the music moves on to further development in expansive and measured vein.  This is expansion is interrupted by a strong and powerful passage introducing more material.  We move from full orchestral vigour to a slimmed down catalina for solo violin again.  The music has a natural unforced style which later lovers of this kind of source material will savour.  It is beautifully and not excessively orchestrated.  She manages a exquisite ambiguity in a dark and utterly transfixing coda of this movement.

The last movement Allegro di molto opens with a breezy sweeping, striding and powerful melody with the orchestra in full voice.  The music moves between this full voice energetic mode and some quite solo voiced passages which are more reflective. Beach is bold and declamatory in this music but keeps it moving rather brilliantly (in both senses of the word).  She softens the gait and gently introduces slower, sweeter music in the last third which builds to a bracing, singing coda which with adept side step becomes bolder into a triumphant close.


The case for more women composers in the survey is easily made on the one hand - there’s a rich view to be mined.  But not all of them have that spark which engages me as an author in the same way that the symphonies of Dvorak, Elgar and Tchaikovsky don’t - and for that reason their symphonies won’t appear in this survey.  And some more well-known female composers the symphony wasn’t an option they choose - Fanny Mendelssohn, Clara Schumann and the Boulangers and Germaine Tailleferre.  Options will always be limited by taste and supply but not by intent I’m glad to have one female composer under my belt and there will be more.

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