Amy Beach, "Gaelic" Symphony

Amy Beach, "Gaelic" Symphony

Amy Beach is a name that might not be familiar to you. She was born in 1867 and died in 1944, and her life was one of the most fascinating and varied in musical history. She was a child prodigy, became a successful pianist, and then pivoted to composing at her husband's request. She was one of the first successful composers without any training from Europeans, and when her Gaelic Symphony was performed for the first time in 1896, it became the first symphony by an American woman to be published or performed. This symphony, and Beach's whole career, is inextricably linked with the history and mores of the time, from the influence of Dvorak on American music, to Beach's stop and start relationship to performing. The Gaelic symphony is a remarkable amalgamation of American symphonic brilliance, some European influence(especially from Dvorak), and the music of Beach's own heritage. It's a symphony that was very popular in its time and then was forgotten, but now is finding itself on the stage more and more often. This week on the show we'll go through this beautiful symphony, a pillar of early American classical music, and a piece that certainly deserves to be better known than it is. Join us!

Jaksot(282)

Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 6 (Part 1)

Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 6 (Part 1)

The great and somewhat controversial conductor Leopold Stokowski said this about Tchaikovsky: "His musical utterance comes directly from the heart and is a spontaneous expression of his innermost feel...

21 Maalis 50min

Beethoven String Quartet, Op. 59, No.2

Beethoven String Quartet, Op. 59, No.2

I'm always tickled by composer trivia questions, like which standard canon works begin in a major key and end in a minor key? I'll give you one, but please comment others below: Mendelssohn's 4th Symp...

5 Maalis 56min

Brahms Symphony No. 2 LIVE w/ The Aalborg Symphony

Brahms Symphony No. 2 LIVE w/ The Aalborg Symphony

Brahms spent much of his adult life battling with his ambition to write the next great symphony and his terror at the shadow of Beethoven standing behind him. Brahms tortured himself for 14 years with...

19 Helmi 58min

Zemlinsky: The Mermaid

Zemlinsky: The Mermaid

The story of Alexander von Zemlinsky's The Mermaid begins with a passionate love affair and ends in heartbreak of the most unabashedly big-R Romantic kind. In 1900, the young, fabulously talented, and...

5 Helmi 1h 1min

Pergolesi Stabat Mater

Pergolesi Stabat Mater

Many aspects of Giovanni Battista Pergolesi's life seem relatively normal when it comes to composers of the Baroque era. He was prolific, died young, and his music became very famous only after his de...

22 Tammi 59min

Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2

Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2

We humans seem to love comeback stories, and there is no comeback quite as compelling in the classical music world as Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto. It was written three years after the disastr...

8 Tammi 52min

Handel Messiah w/ Aram Demirjian

Handel Messiah w/ Aram Demirjian

A piece that I have been asked to cover probably a dozen times is Handel's Messiah. It's a piece I love, but a piece that I've never conducted or played, and so therefore I don't know it incredibly we...

18 Joulu 20251h 9min

Gustav Holst: The Planets

Gustav Holst: The Planets

Mr. Holst, wherever you are, I apologize in advance for what I'm about to say. From my research, I know you resented this fact, but unfortunately, I think it's true. Here it is: despite the large cata...

4 Joulu 20251h 2min

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