{"id":83742,"date":"2022-04-27T11:37:24","date_gmt":"2022-04-27T18:37:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.allclassical.org\/?p=83742"},"modified":"2026-03-20T14:51:19","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T21:51:19","slug":"amy-beach-poetry-and-the-piano","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.allclassical.org\/amy-beach-poetry-and-the-piano\/","title":{"rendered":"Amy Beach: Poetry and the Piano"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Poetry was a major theme in the music of American composer Amy Marcy Cheney Beach<\/a> (1867-1944). Her 117 art songs explore a huge range of poets, from Robert Browning<\/a> to Robert Burns<\/a>. Amy Beach\u2019s love of poetry also appears in a large catalogue of choral compositions, with settings of poets like Oliver Wendell Holmes<\/a>, in The Chambered Nautilus<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>Op. 66, and Francis of Assisi<\/a>, in The Canticle of the Sun<\/em><\/a>, Op. 123. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beach\u2019s immersion in poetry went beyond texted music. Poetry also influenced music for the instrument Beach played the most: the piano. In honor of National Poetry Month, we present a selection of piano works by Amy Beach, all inspired by poetry. Beach inscribed the scores of the first six selections with poetic quotations, which we\u2019ve reproduced here for you. In the last two selections, the titles themselves are quotations from one of humanity\u2019s oldest surviving books of poetry, the Book of Psalms. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Hermit Thrush, Op. 92<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Amy Beach\u2019s two-part Op. 92, Hermit Thrush<\/em>, takes inspiration both from poetry and from nature. Beach selected two poems, reflecting contrasting moods, to head her two pieces. The first piece, \u201cHermit Thrush at Eve,\u201d features generous use of the piano\u2019s bass register, and blurry pedaled chords, to suggest the \u201chush\u201d of John Vance Cheney\u2019s poem, \u201cThe Hermit Thrush.\u201d The second piece, \u201cHermit Thrush at Morn,\u201d places the thrush\u2019s \u201crapture\u201d within a solemn waltz that preserves wonder of John Clare\u2019s poem, \u201cThe Thrush\u2019s Nest.\u201d Beach\u2019s slow waltz is interspersed with bursts of virtuosic joy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the scores of both pieces, Beach explains that her music reproduces the song of actual thrushes<\/a> she heard at the MacDowell Colony<\/a>, an artists\u2019 retreat in New Hampshire where she spent many happy summers composing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese bird-calls are exact notations of hermit-thrush songs, in the original keys but an octave lower, obtained at MacDowell Colony, Peterborough, New Hampshire.\u201d<\/em> (Amy Beach, Hermit Thrush<\/a>, Boston: Arthur P. Schmidt, 1922, 3, 43.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A Hermit Thrush at Eve, Op. 92, No. 1<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHoly, holy! In the hush,  <\/em>
Hearken to the hermit thrush,  <\/em>
All the air  <\/em>
Is in prayer.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

From The Hermit Thrush<\/a> by John Vance Cheney<\/a> (1848-1922)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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