Amy Beach (Paperback)

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Amy Marcy Cheney Beach was an American composer and pianist. She was the first successful American female composer of large-scale art music. Most of her compositions and performances were under the name Mrs. H.H.A. Beach. Beach was born Amy Marcy Cheney in Henniker, New Hampshire into a distinguished New England family. A child prodigy, she was able to sing forty tunes accurately by age one; by age two she could improvise a countermelody to any melody her mother sang, she taught herself to read at age three, and began composing simple waltzes at the age of four. She began formal piano lessons with her mother at the age of six, and a year later started giving public recitals, playing works by Handel, Beethoven, Chopin, and her own pieces. In 1875, Beach's family moved to Boston, where they were advised to enter her into a European conservatory