Marcy Cheney's Life And Accomplishments

Amy March Cheney Beach was a legendary music composer and pianist and was the best woman composer at the time in the United States. As a woman, she defied all traditional conventions and set foot into a world of musical maestros to create some of the most notable works of her period. Amy Marcy Cheney was born in the cozy little town of Henniker, New Hampshire, on September 5, 1867. Born to a wealthy New England house, Amy took after her mother, Clara Imogene (popularly known as Marcy), who was an extremely talented pianist and an amateur singer at her time. Such was the influence that, even by the age of one, Amy had memorized over forty songs. She began composing her own hymns and waltzes with simple symphonies at the

She became an established, solo composer and performer and her famous ‘Gaelic Symphony’ was widely popular all over Europe. She was forced to go back to the United States when WWI broke out and chose to live in New York for the rest of her life. In 1892, she stunned audiences with her first ever orchestral composition called ‘Mass in E-flat major’, numbered Opus 5. This was performed by the Handel and Haydn Society and was very well received by critics and listeners. She continued composing and writing works such as ‘Eilende Wolken’, ‘Festival Jubilate’, and her first symphony known as the ‘Gaelic Symphony’ was completed in 1896. She spent her winters touring and her summers confined to her cottage in Massachusetts, composing and creating. She played for churches and also wrote works for the Chamber Music society of San Francisco. One such work called ‘Theme and variations for flute and string quartets’, went on to become one of the most historical pieces ever written. In 1932, Beach composed her first opera ‘Cabildo’ which became widely popular along with her other 300 works. Most of her ideas were inspired along the lines of ‘romanticism’, which earned her a label of a ‘sentimental musician’ by the

The work was a watershed for Beach, who thereafter used vernacular melodies--especially Irish and Scottish-- as themes in about thirty of her three hundred compositions. Neglected after Beach's death, the symphony has made a recent comeback. Its performance on 9 January 2000 on the American Composers Orchestra's "Roots" concert reaffirms the "Gaelic" Symphony's importance as an early nationalist composition by a pioneer in the development of an "American" music Beach died of a chronic heart disease on December 27, 1944 in her New York home. The magnitude of her character and heart was seen when she decided to allocate a large part of her will to MacDowell colony. She was one of the most renowned artists of her time, and went on to inspire thousands of upcoming talents. The sad part is however, that her legacy failed to continue posthumously. She was quickly forgotten and all her musical achievements were shelved till the year 1990 when female musicians brought out her works once again and complimented her bravery and her gusto at a time when women faced a lot of oppression. They also highlighted how she chose to be productive in a field where only men dominated during her time. They commended her for her bravery and Amy beach was finally