SusanARI's Full Review: Adrienne Fried Block - Amy Beach, Passionate Victo...
This book is a biography of American composer Amy Beach.
It's very interesting even if you're not into her music or are unfamiliar with her work. The book goes into great detail about Victorian society and the roles women were expected to play in it. Anyone who is interested in the changes that took place in the lives of women between the 19th and 20th century would enjoy reading this biography.
Amy Beach (born Amy Cheney) was a child prodigy. Her mother taught her to play the piano as a child but with no intention of her daughter ever becoming a professional musician...that just didn't happen in that era. Amy Beach was composing by the age of 4 and performing publicly by the time she was 7. At age 13, she wrote "Rainy Day", her first published song. At age 16, she made her professional debut as a pianist and became a soloist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
To be a female and a composer in the Victorian era was unheard of.
In 1885, she married Henry Beach, a physician, and this ended her public performances for many years...for the length of the marriage. It was unacceptable to her husband that she pursue her career. But even while married, carrying out her role as a physician's wife, and being forbidden from performing publicly, she continued to challenge herself as a musician.
She was once again free after her husband's death and started traveling and performing once again. She performed and composed music until almost the very end of her life in 1944.
Amy Marcy Cheney Beach (1867-1944), the most widely performed composer of her generation, was the first American woman to succeed as a creator of larg...More at Buy.com
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