Symphony in e minor, Op. 32, “Gaelic”

Composer: BEACH, Amy Marcy Cheney
  • Symphony in e minor, Op. 32, “Gaelic” was the first symphony by an American to garner international acclaim. It premiered with the Boston Symphony Orchestra on October 30, 1896.1
  • This work was a response, or rather a challenge, to Antonín Dvořák’s call to American composers to draw on native materials. Beach chose instead to base the work on themes from the British Isles, which in her view most accurately reflected her Anglo-American heritage.2
    • Beach drew much of the material from a collection of old Irish melodies:

“Their simple, rugged and unpretentious beauty led me to… try to develop their ideas in symphonic form.” – Amy Beach3

  • Interestingly, her “Gaelic” symphony is the only work Beach wrote in the genre.4

Sources

  1. Betsy Schwarm, “Gaelic Symphony,” Encyclopedia Britannica (2015), accessed July 29, 2022, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Gaelic-Symphony.
  2. Adrienne Fried Block, “Beach [Cheney], Amy Marcy,” Grove Music Online (2020), accessed July 29, 2022, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-1002248268.
  3. Michael Fleming, “Amy Marcy Cheney Beach: Symphony in E minor (Gaelic),” in accompanying booklet, Samuel Barber / Amy Beach performed by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra conducted by Neeme Järvi, CHAN 8958, 1991, compact disc.
  4. Ibid.

Cut IDs

13330