Obscure Music Monday: Beach's Summer Dreams

Amy Marcy Cheney Beach (Sept. 5, 1867 - December 27, 1944) was an American composer and pianist. Extremely gifted from a young age, Beach's talents seemed to run in the family, with various members playing instruments or singing, and showing great aptitude for music.

Beach was exceptionally talented, having learned 40 songs around the age of one, and at two she was able to sing counter melodies. She taught herself to read at three, and composed some piano waltzes at age four. She began formal lessons with her mother at six, and was soon giving public recitals and performing her own music. In 1875, her family moved from New Hampshire to Chelsea, Massachusetts, and instead of enrolling their talented daughter in a European conservatory, they chose to keep her training local. She studied piano along with harmony and counterpoint, but her thirst for knowledge was formidable. She did additional work on her own time outside of her studies.

Beach's output was not insignificant, and she wrote quite a few works for piano, including one for piano 4 hands, titled Summer Dreams. This six-movement work revolves around things that are related to nature, and each of them have a contrasting mood. The work starts off with "Brownies" which are said to be benevolent elves who haunt houses, and do housework. You can hear the elves haunting and getting to work with the opening line, and their benevolence in the major key sections. In "Robin Redbreast", Beach recreates birdsong with some pretty triplets; she apparently had long been interested in putting birdsong to music. "Twilight" takes after a poem that Beach herself wrote:

The birds have hushed themselves to rest
And night comes fast, to drop her pall
Till morn brings life to all.

The mood she creates is calming; you can just imagines the birds of her poem being lulled to sleep.

In "Katy-dids" there's a hopping-like sense in the melody, as if she were putting the jumps of crickets to music. "Elfin Tarentelle" is cheeky and mischievous, moving at a very brisk 6/8; these elves are moving hurriedly, according to Beach's musical storytelling. This colorful work comes to a close with "Good Night," in which a moving bass line underneath some half notes creates a sleepy mood; Beach is wishing the creatures of her work a peaceful night's sleep.