Amy Beach: Piano Music. . - Keyboard - book review

American Music Teacher, Dec, 2001 by Richard Crosby

Amy Beach: Piano Music, selected and with an introduction by Adrienne Fried Block. Dover Publications, Inc., (31 E. 2nd St., Mineola, NY 11501), 2001. 58 pp., $7.95. Intermediate to moderately difficult.

The eminent Beach scholar Adrienne Fried Block, author of Amy Beach: Passionate Victorian, has selected a fine representative sample of Beach's piano music for this outstanding and very reasonably priced Dover publication. The ten-work collection contains some of Beach's best-known piano works, with representative examples from all stages of her career. Notable among the early works are the Ballad Opus 6 and "Dreaming" Opus 15, No. 3. The Ballad is based on her song, "O my luve is like a red, red rose," on a poem by Robert Burns and is a large-scale, challenging and impassioned work. By contrast, "Dreaming," from her Opus 15 Sketches, is a work reminiscent of Liszt's "Liebestraume" with its lush harmonies and murmuring accompanimental figurations. This collection features a good balance between the more challenging works, such as the Ballad, "Morning Glories Opus 97, No. 1 and "Fireflies" from the Opus 15 Sketches, to the easier works, such as the Scottish Legend Opus 54, No. 1 and From Blackbird Hills Opus 83. In addition, there are the intermediate works that, while challenging musically, are technically quite reasonable. These include the Barcarolle Opus 28, No. 1 and one of a set of two pieces from later in her life that actually use transcribed bird song--A Hermit Thrush at Morn Opus 92, No. 2.

This collection shows Beach at her best, as an accessible, pianistic composer with a rich, romantic harmonic palette, and this volume is a must for all piano students and teachers. For all of us interested in American music, this new publication is a welcome addition to the available works of this long-neglected composer who is beginning to get the honor and attention she deserves.

Richard Crosby, Richmond, Kentucky