🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on BBC #Radio3's #ComposerOfTheWeek #COTW Amy Beach, Münchner Symphoniker & Joseph Bastian: 🎵 Symphony in E minor 'Gaelic' Op.32 #BBCRadio3 #AmyBeach #MünchnerSymphoniker #JosephBastian

🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on BBC #Radio3's #ComposerOfTheWeek #COTW Amy Beach, Angela Brower, Münchner Symphoniker & Joseph Bastian: 🎵 Eilende Wolken, segler der Lufte, Op.18 #BBCRadio3 #AmyBeach #AngelaBrower #MünchnerSymphoniker #JosephBastian

🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on BBC #Radio3's #EssentialClassics Mel Bonis & Joseph Bastian: 🎵 Sarabande, Op. 82/2 #BBCRadio3 #MelBonis #JosephBastian #newRelease - 🆕 album ▶️ 🪄 Automagic 🔊 show 📻 playlist on Spotify ▶️ Track on #Spotify:

Sarabande, Op. 82/2

Concert arias Amy Beach prove true operatic gems

Sometimes fate favours us. For instance, when recently three concert arias by the American composer Amy Beach (1867-1944) were rediscovered and released on CD by the Münchner Symphoniker. It opens with her Gaelic Symphony, which was a resounding success at its premiere in 1896 and was immediately included in the canon of American music.

Amy Beach was born the daughter of Charles Cheney and his wife Clara, a singer and pianist. By the age of two, she was already improvising counter-melodies to her mother’s vocal parts, and by the age of four, she could replay any piece of music by ear; she also invented her own piano pieces, which she later learned to convert into music notation.

Amy Beach (c) George Grantham Bain Collection (Library of Congress)

At 16, she made her orchestral debut with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, in Chopin’s Rondo in E-flat and Moscheles’ Piano Concerto. She made a big impression and after this she soloed throughout the country with renowned orchestras.

Her burgeoning career as a touring soloist was cut short in 1885, when she married Henry Beach. He was a 24-year-old surgeon and passionate amateur singer, who only allowed her to give two public concerts a year. However, he did encourage her to develop compositionally, and she would eventually complete over 300 compositions.

She achieved her first major success as a composer with her Mass in E-flat major in 1892, followed four years later by her Gaelic Symphony. She soon became one of the most esteemed composers of her time, and with Horatio Parker and Edward McDowall she belonged to the so-called group of the “Boston Six”, who pursued a classical sound. Although she had not studied in Europe, her music is in the late romantic German tradition, with echoes of Antonín Dvorák.

Gaelic inspiration

Where Dvorák harped back on his Czech roots, Beach sought inspiration in old folksongs from England, Scotland and Ireland. Melodies from these found their way into her first symphony, which she aptly dubbed “Gaelic”. In this first symphony ever composed by an American woman, she quotes a Celtic theme that she previously used in her song “Dark is the Night”, about a stormy boat trip at sea.

The symphony opens with a whirlwind of strings and quickly builds to a stormy climax. Just as rapidly the wind dies down again, after which the horn plays a dashing melody that is taken over and varied by oboe and flute. The brisk tempo and the lively, ingeniously interlocking melody lines create a cheerful, fresh atmosphere, as of a warm spring day.

In the second movement, the horn plays an unctuous Irish folk melody, with thin high strings and languid pizzicati in the basses creating a fairytale atmosphere. In the third movement, a lone violin plays a wistful solo that rises from the depths and takes the oboe in tow, against subdued sounds from the orchestra. The last movement is as exuberant as the first.

The music is distinctly powerful, with an exhilarating mix of exuberant brass and triumphantly roaring timpani against more sedate passages in which strings weave a softly buzzing carpet under lyrical motifs of woodwinds. Beach fully exploits the contrasting colours of the different orchestral groups, with the parts moving smoothly through all the extremes of their registers. Despite the rapidly changing moods, the transitions always sound organic and natural.

The three concert arias once again illustrate her phenomenal orchestration skills, also bringing her fine sense of drama into full play. Moreover, she proves to be a master at devising appealing melodies. No wonder her piano songs were so popular: when she toured Europe after her husband’s death in 1910, the demand for scores proved to exceed her publisher’s stock many times over.

In Maria Stuart, set to verses by Friedrich Schiller, the Queen of Scots is allowed a brief escape from the dungeon in which her cousin Elisabeth holds her captive. A lyrical oboe solo, descending lines in the horns versus rising ones in the flutes sketch an anxious atmosphere, intensified by ominous timpani rolls.

Almost a cappella, mezzo-soprano Angela Brower sings of her sad fate in passionate cantilenas. Cries of anguish in the highest register and whispered incantations in the lowest make you shiver. Brower manages to make Maria’s suffering eminently palpable, while her voice remains full and resounding in any position.

https://youtu.be/1PtawC4hzKU

Equally melodic and compelling are the intensely sad concert aria Jephta’s Daughter and the orchestral song Extase, in which a plaintive alto oboe beautifully circles the soloist’s lines. Unfortunately, soprano Camille Schnoor is a bit shrill in height and not always pure in intonation.

Chief conductor Joseph Bastian leads the Munich Symphoniker skilfully through the shimmering scores, with a great sense of drama and an impressive command of dynamics. Just as they opened the album with a spot-on performance of the Gaelic Symphony, the musicians close the album CD with a dazzling interpretation of the dance-like Bal masqué. Thanks to them, the opera repertoire has been enriched with three gems of concert arias.

#AmyBeach #AngelaBrower #CamilleSchnoor #JosephBastian #MünchnerSymphoniker

# HKM100: OZEANBLAU mit den Münchner Symphonikern
Die Münchner Symphoniker sind eines der großen und renommierten Orchester in München. Chefdirigent ist Joseph Bastian. Über die Musik hinaus stellt sich der Klangkörper in dieser Saison auch in den Dienst der Umwelt. …
https://hrbruns.de/hrb/hkm100-ozeanblau-mit-den-muenchner-symphonikern/
#JosephBastian #Konzert #MuenchnerSymphoniker #OZEANBLAU #Umwelt #HKMPodcast