Amy Beach notated the exact songs of hermit thrushes she heard at the MacDowell Colony, Peterborough, New Hampshire, and included them in her piece 'A Hermit Thrush at Eve'.
Composer Biography
Amy Beach, born in 1867, was a child prodigy who could sing forty songs accurately by age one and taught herself to read by age three.
Performer Biography
Martina Frezzotti, the pianist on this album, was the first Italian in history to obtain a Doctorate in Music with full marks from the prestigious Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow.
Composer Biography
Amy Beach was largely self-taught as a composer, translating treatises by Hector Berlioz and François-Auguste Gevaert from French for her own study.
Composer Biography
After marrying Dr. Henry Harris Aubrey Beach, a Boston surgeon, Amy Beach was restricted to giving no more than two recitals a year and was not permitted to teach piano.
Composition History
Amy Beach's Variations on Balkan Themes, Op.60, is based on four folk songs given to her by a missionary to the Balkans, including the Serbian folk song 'O Maiko Moyá'.
Compositional Technique
Amy Beach's Prelude and Fugue, Op.81, uses the notes forming her name, A-B-E-A-C-H, as the basis for both the prelude's theme and the fugue's subject.
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