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The world needs the spiritual influence of great art as never before in history! ... the materials out of which our work is made are our very innermost feelings, the actual nerve force and beat of our bodies, guided by our specially trained minds and the technique acquired of long years of drudgery. ... music must be a form of our personality... so long as we write exactly what we ourselves feel and believe, so honest is our work and so high is its quality.1
AMY MARCY CHENEY BEACH (1867-1944) began her foray into the world of composition, passionately determined to succeed.2 At that time, approaching the nineteenth century's emergence into the twentieth, the United States possessed an impressive territorial imperative and industrial hierarchy and could finally afford to search for its own artistic voice. Stephen Foster's songs seemed a plausible American voice to some, but others solicited a more complex musical style that could compete with the European market. At the same juncture in history, women were seeking further emancipation of spirit, although the propriety of feminine artistic endeavor had not yet been ascertained. On the one hand stood the suffocated creativity of artists like Fanny Mendelssohn; on the other were the licentious exploits of George Sand. Thus, American society was cautious enough to corset any passion that conflicted with an upwardly mobile bourgeois ethos. Mrs. Beach was highly cognizant of her position in world society: as a woman, an American, and a creative artist.3 Consequently, she employed a variety of musical genres, from quasi parlor songs to works such as the highly polished Gaelic Symphony. Her creative inspiration was at times informed by an American bourgeois feminine socialization. However, in certain songs, she achieved a "sublime transport"that transcends gender and nationality and places her among the greatest of art song composers.4
Amy Beach was gifted with perfect pitch. She was highly sensitive to keys, associating each key with a particular color and corresponding emotional feeling.5 By the time she was seven, she had given public recitals of Chopin and Beethoven that revealed prodigious talents, and a promising concert career was projected by the time she was sixteen.6 She also demonstrated a predilection for composing; her piano pieces and songs were regularly included...