Amy Beach Piano Trio, Op. 150

Amy Beach (1867-1944)
Piano Trio Op. 150
I. Allegro
II. Lento espressivo
III. Allegro con brio
Performers:
Mendelssohn Piano Trio
Ya-Ting Chang, piano / Peter Sirotin, violin / Fiona Thompson, cello
Venu:
Messiah College
Calvin & Janet High Center for Worship and Performing Arts,
High Foundation Recital Hall
Date:
February 24, 2019
Amy Beach was the first successful American female composer of large-scale art music. Her "Gaelic" Symphony, premiered by the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1896, was the first symphony composed and published by an American woman. Her marriage to a Boston surgeon twenty-four years her senior was conditioned upon her willingness "to live according to his status,” never to teach piano, to limit performances to two public recitals per year, with profits donated to charity. Dr. Beach also disapproved of his wife studying composition with a tutor. Just as Fanny Mendelssohn was told a few decades earlier, "music will perhaps become Felix’s profession, while for you it can and must be only an ornament."