Original Photograph

NY: Ruder Photographer, 1890. Original photograph, 5-3/4 x 4-3/8 inches, mounted on grey board, 8 x 12 inches, within triple rules, some sunning to top inch of board on which photo is mounted, lacking tissue guard was was previously affixed, photograph is fine. This is a handsome image of the pianist and composer, seated on a rocker on a proch most likely in the country, reading a book. The tree outside the porch and the light colored and light-weight dress indicates summer. Amy Beach (1867-1944), composer and pianist , showed her musical precocity early on; by four, she was composing waltzes. her mother, a talented singer and pianist, undertook her daughter's first musical education; later she studied Ernst Perebo, Junius W. Hill and Carl Baermann. During the winter of 1881-1882, Hill taught her harmony, 'the only formal instruction in music theory she ever received. l[NAW] At the age of 16, she debuted with the Boston Symphony Orchestra as a pianist and, finding favor with critics and public alike, continued to give recitals. Her marriage in 1885 to Dr. H.H.A. Beach, a distinquished surgeon and colleague of Dr. Oliver Wendell olmes, considerable altered the course of her career. her husband appreciated and supported her music but disliked her performing in public. With his encouragement she focusted on composing, teaching herself the priciples of musical composition. Her Mass in E Flat major for vocal quarter, chorus, orchestra and organ, was first performed in 1892 by the Handel and Haydn Society with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. It was the "first work by a woman performed by this oldest and most conservative of American choral organizations." [NAW] remarkable for any composer, all but three of her 150 works were published. She also sought to encourage other woman in music, founding in 1926 and serving as first President, the Association of American Women Composers. [THE BOOK OF WMEN'S FIRSTS] Highly regarded throughout her career, Beach's music fell into oblivion after her death; new recordings in the 1970's reawakened interest in this fine composer and musician. AMERICAN COMPOSERS, pp. 44-46. DICTIONARY OF AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY, V. II, pp. 41-43. THE NATIONA NATIONAL CYCLOPEDIA. Read, THE BOOK OF WOMEN'S FIRSTS, FAMOUS AMERICAN WOMEN, pp. 25l-26. TIMELINES, pp. 342, 347, 351.