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Amy Beach's 'Gaelic Symphony' (1896) is First American Symphony Composed by a Women

Courtesy of Eire Society of Boston

The very first symphony composed by an American woman was called Gaelic Symphony, Opus 32, a beautiful piece of music that evoked centuries of Ireland's ancient music.  It was written by pianist Amy Marcy Cheney Beach, who was born in Henniker, New Hampshire on September 5, 1867.

Gaelic Symphony premiered on October 30, 1896 at Boston Music Hall, and was performed by the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The musical composition instantly received critical acclaim, and was quickly sought by premier orchestras around the country, in Pittsburgh, Washington, Kansas City and Chicago.  

Though mainly of Yankee stock - a distant relative, John Marcy, emigrated from Limerick to New England in the 17th century - Beach said she was drawn to the simple beauty of Irish melodies, according to the late George E. Ryan of the Eire Society of Boston, who wrote about Beach in the 1992 Eire Society Bulletin.

Courtesy of Fans of Amy Beach

Amy herself wrote, "I can ascribe no particular reason for my choice of Gaelic subjects for the symphony other than having been attracted by some of the wonderful old tunes in a collection of Gaelic folk music....Their simple, rugged and unpretentious beauty led me to ...try to develop their ideas in symphonic form."

Later, Beach found a wealth of material at the Boston Public Library, which in 1902 had received a five-volume  collection of 1,000 Irish tunes collected by Dr. Henry Hudson in Dublin.  It was bequeathed to the BPL after Hudson's death.   Amy cited a number of tunes that inspired her in the collection, including Conchobhar ua Raghallaigh Clan, Goirtin Ornadh, Cushlamachree and Cia an Bealach.  

Beach's attraction to Irish music was part of a broad movement underway in Europe and the United States that combined ethnic folk music with classical structures, exemplified by Beach,  Hungarian composer Bela Bartok and others. Later in her career, Beach "returned to traditional fare often, shaping her music to stories and verse from the folklore of Eskimos, Native Americans and Balkan peoples as well as Scots and the Irish," according to Ryan. 

Beach died on December 27, 1944, having lived a full and fruitful life.  She is buried at Forest Hill Cemetery in Jamaica Plain.

When the now famous Edward Hatch Memorial Shell was being constructed on the Charles River Esplanade in the 1940s, there was a plan to add to the exterior the names of the world's leading composers. "Among them will be Debussy, Wagner, Brahms, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Haydn, Straus and Tchaikovsky," according to The Boston Globe. 

Amy Beach's name was missing from the original list, but it was finally added to the Hatch Shell in 2000, thanks to the efforts of Dr. Liane Curtis, resident scholar of Women's Studies at Brandeis University.  She enlisted the support of  other fans of Mrs. Beach's music, including maestro Keith Lockhart of the Boston Pops Orchestra.

The music and memory of Amy Beach remain popular today, as evidenced by the Fans of Amy Beach Facebook page. 







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