Amy Margaret Beach (1867-1944)
America

Amy Beach was the first great American woman composer, and was rightfully so. Her composition endeavors started at the early age of 4, at which time she started writing simple waltzes. She started to sit a the piano at age-six. Ten years later she became a part of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. In 1882, the New York Philharmonic Society played an aria she had composed at the age of 13. However, her life as a performer was limited. Her husband did not allow her to perform much, yet he did not limit the time she spent in composition. Unsurprisingly, almost all of her 150 compositions were published and praised. In 1896, Mrs. Beach's Gaelic Symphony was the first American symphony to be played by major European orchestras.

Works
Orchestral
- Gaelic Symphony (1896)
Opera
- Cabildo (1932)
Chamber Music
- Violin Sonata (1896)
- Piano Quintet (1907)
- String Quartet (1929)
- Piano Trio (1938)
Choral Music
- Mass in E-Flat (1896)
- Festival Jubilate (1891)
- "The Song of Welcome" (1898)
- "The Chambered Nautilus" (1907)
Songs
- Five Songs to Words by Robert Burns (1899)
- Three Browning Songs (1900)
- concert aria "Eilende Wolken" ("Racing Clouds") for voice and orchestra (1892)
Keyboard
- The Hermit Thrush at Morn and The Hermit Thrush at Eve, 1921
Organ
- "The Fair Hills of Eire, O" (1943)

Sources:

"Amy Marcy Beach." Classical Composers Database. Ad. Joe Smeets. 14 Feb. 1999
< http://utopia.knoware.nl/~jsmeets/abc.htm>

Longyear, Ray M. Nineteenth-Century Romanticism in Music. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1988.

Rosen, Charles. The Romantic Generation. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995.

Sony Classical. Sony Music Entertainment. 2001. <http://www.essentialsofmusic.com/eras/romhist.html>