Dave's Faves No. 293 (Beach's Piano Concerto and 'Gaelic' Symphony)

Amy Beach: Piano Concerto; "Gaelic" Symphony. Nashville Symphony Orchestra, Kenneth Schermerhorn (cond.) Naxos

[Vandalarius]

You recommended the Gaelic Symphony in your video on sequels to Dvorak's 9th. One of my favorite videos of yours - I loved every recommendation on that list: William Grant Still, Florence Price, William Dawson, Amy Beach and Hamilton Harty. All wonderful.

[scottjacksonwiley]

Thank you for this talk. Very appreciated. I have grown to love the symphony. Everywhere I look in its pages I see a composer of fine ideas and real craft. I am most grateful.

[petejilka]

We performed the "Gaelic' about four years ago with the Bay Area Rainbow Symphony. A very good symphony with an overabundance of charming tunes that was fun to perform..

[martinhaub]

I love this under-played symphony. The delightful 2nd movement should have become a light classics encore years ago. It's a shame the Boston Symphony hasn't bothered to record it. Of all the orchestras out there, they should.

[gerhardohrband]

Thanks for bringing some sanity into the current cultural discussion. Very well pointed, "supposed values".

[mickeytheviewmoo]

I have got to admit I prefer her Piano Quintet. You recommended the Elgar & Beach: Piano Quintets on Hyperion. It's an absolute cracker. One of those discs I can firmly say is one of my favs.

[frederickhill]

L'shana tova, from Sydney, Australia, David! Continue to delight, enrage and stimulate us with your encyclopaedic knowledge for years to come. I look forward to your take on our one composer of unquestionable international standing, Percy Grainger.

[marklee]

Thanks. I discovered her decades ago through the old Vox/Turnabout LP that included her Op. 67 Piano Quintet. Found a cd of this performance coupled with a recording of the Piano Concerto years later. Found the Jarvi recoding of the Symphony. Also a couple of discs featuring the pianist Joanne Polk. But my most interesting find was a recording of the Grand Mass in E-flat Major, appearing on a label called Newport Classic. Who knows if they even exist now? My guess would be no. Seems they could not arrange to get a full orchestra, so the parts were transcribed for organ. Still a good performance. So that's my modest handful of Beach cd's, collected over a fair span of years. All of it solid and attractive music. So again thanks for mentioning this fine but neglected composer!

[theforceiswithme]

My favorite misprint of all time was where a concert was announced featuring the Amy Beach: Symphony in E-minor 'Garlic' !

[VallaMusic]

will definitely give the music a listen - also admire your position on separating music from ideological agendas and judging it on its own artistic merit

[mike-williams]

While Beach may have been reacting to Dvorak's work, but there was already a big tradition in the mid-late 19th century of Anglo-European composer-pianists touring the world with suites of virtuoso renderings of Irish, Scottish etc airs -- or indeed local folk tunes on the various continents they visited. For instance William Vincent Wallace, or Jane Röckel (a student of Clara Schumann) who wrote endless glissando-laced confections of Celtic and Gaelic tunes for Arabella Goddard. It was as if the piano technology of the time allowed musicians to re-mix all the old faves for the salon classes.

[bloodgrss]

Another really thought provoking video-and I have loved the "Gaelic' since it was recorded and released by my home town band, The Detroit Symphony with Jarvi. A friend of mine pointed out, along with the 'almost unknowns' like the Beach Piano Concerto, I might like the D'Albert from 1884, when he was 18! Tho' it is perhaps derivative of Liszt (no mean derivation), I found it delightful; much less hollow note spinning than many late 19th century ones, with a 'piquancy' in orchestration I found at times almost modern. Can't find that you have specifically commented on it, or D'Albert in particular; would love that in some future chat. Thanks for pointing out to me this fine music again.

[MofosOfMetal]

Amy Beach composed a lot of wonderful music! I love her solo works like her Ballade op6 and her chamber music including the Piano Quintet recorded alongside the Elgar Quintet by Garrick Ohlsson on a Hyperion disc. I do think the Danny Driver recording of the Concerto is superior on Hyperion too, however of course the Symphony and Concerto coupling here is irresistible! Speaking of Hamilton Harty - his Piano Concerto in B minor is very good also! (recorded by Malcolm Binns) I actually am more familiar with that than his Symphony.

[Plantagenet]

I only have the Quintet, on Hyperion. So this be interesting. Thank you.

[stephanversmissen]

Do you prefer this one to the Danny Driver's recording of the piano concerto on Hyperion?

[willcwhite]

On the other hand, perhaps Mrs. Beach should be seen as a righteous warrior crusading against the crime of cultural appropriation...

[james.t.herman]

Is it a belief in the superiority of Anglo culture, or just a preference for it? How do we know the difference? If someone went into a jazz club and started improvising over a Haydn string quartet, jazz fans wouldn’t accept that — not necessarily because they think Haydn is inferior to jazz, but because those things simply don’t go together.

[rg]

I don't hesitate to judge people. But those judgements don't apply to their music. I'm always careful to make that distinction. For example, my admiration for the MUSIC of Wagner does not extend to the man himself. And Beethoven's hygiene is an issue too remote in time to impact my senses. In science, one would not abandon the idea of elliptical planetary orbits if it was revealed that Kepler beat his wife.

[phomchick]

Woman composer who died in 1944? Hmmm, could she have been the composer of "Music of the Spheres"'? Nope, that is a different neglected woman composer who died in 1944: Johanna Beyer. Oh well, some day, I'll get this straight. And bravo! for ridiculing the current academic cultural and racial overlay that we are expected to apply to music and composers.