Amy BEACH (1867-1944)
Complete Works for Piano Duo
Variations on Balkan Themes, Op.60c (1904, 2 piano version 1942) [19:30]
Three Pieces for piano 4 hands (1883) [8:07]
Suite for 2 Pianos founded upon Old Irish Melodies Op.104 (1924) [22:22]
Summer Dreams for piano 4 hands Op.47 (1901) [13:52]
Piano Duo Genova and Dimitrov
rec. 2021, Klaus-von-Bismarck-Saal, WDR Funkhaus, Köln
CPO 555453-2 [63:51]
Amy Beach had an excellent pedigree as a pianist and her parents had guided her to the piano and encouraged her musical gifts, already well developed at an early age. She was given tuition by Ernst Parabo and Carl Braemann, pupils of Moscheles and Liszt respectively and at the tender age of seven added one of her own compositions into a short recital alongside works of Chopin and Beethoven. Her only harmony and theory tuition appears to have been with Julius Welch, who was Leipzig trained and she was largely self-taught otherwise. In 1883 she performed in a larger venue in Boston and was lucky enough to find a publisher for her early works. Her marriage at the age of 18 to 42 year old widower Henry Harris Aubrey Beach (she was born Amy Cheney) imposed a limit on her public performances to one benefit concert a year but her husband actively encouraged her composition and her large output, with many genres represented, ably demonstrates this.
Despite the wealth of solo piano music that she wrote this single CD encompasses her entire output for 2 pianists. The earliest works here are three short pieces for piano duet from her mid teens; though they were not published in her lifetime they have since appeared courtesy of Hildegaard Publishing. They only have tempo indications and the heading allegro appassionato of the first belies the utterly delightful Slavonic/Hungarian dance that we hear. The sweet lullaby of the second piece was evidently memorable enough for Beach to re-visit and adapt its material for the sixth of the summer dreams suite. The final piece is an equally engaging song without words, arpeggios gently rippling in the outer sections and with a lyrical barcarolle at its heart. Her only other pieces for piano duet and the only set published in her lifetime is the collection entitled Summer Dreams written in 1901, a year after the premiere of her huge piano concerto and evidently a work intended for the amateur market. The six pieces are each prefaced by a poem; Shakespeare provides the inspiration for two of them, both perhaps coincidentally in the realm of myth. The Brownies, all American elves have a tiptoeing little march and Elfin tarantelle is a spirited but almost sad dance set in the minor key. Beach herself wrote the poem for the third number Twilight, a sentimental slow waltz. Robin Redbreast is an altogether more elegant, flowing waltz with high tweeting of the Robin clearly evident and I love the insistent calls, repeated thirds high in the piano, inspired by the rasping calls of Walt Whitman's Katydids. The final piece, the reworking of the earlier duet is introduced by a poem of Helen Lockhart Hughes whose son was Beach's Godson. Beach also used the poem for a song composed the following year though the musical material was different. The short poems are all reproduced in the extremely informative and well written notes by Norbert Florian Schuck, editor in chief of Germany's the new listener.
The remaining works here are for two pianos though the first, the Variations on Balkan Themes started life as a demanding piano solo written in 1904. Beach had a fondness for folk melodies, setting Irish tunes in the Suite completing this disc and in her Gaelic Symphony as well as native American tunes in her Eskimos op.64; the melodies used here were played to her by a Reverend Sleeper who had done missionary work in Bulgaria. Beach premiered the solo version in 1905 and the two piano version was announced at the time the solo version was published though it did not appear until 1942. In the interim she had revised the solo version to shorten it, after concerns about its length and had further revised the structure for the two piano version. The work opens with a melancholy statement of O Maiko Moya, (O my poor country...why art thou weeping?) and this is the theme used for the first five variations; simple and contrapuntal first then grand and passionate, brim full with octaves, chords and keyboard-encompassing arpeggios. The third, scherzo like is marked fast but not too fast in the solo version but I have to say I love the elfin lightness and glitter of the molto vivace that she calls for here. A graceful barcarolle and a warm hearted nocturne follow before we hear Stara Planina, a hymn to the mountains set as an introduction to the wonderful perpetuum mobile alla Ongarese. The score now departs from the solo version with an entirely new enigmatic and chromatic variation. The chromaticism continues in the sinuous waltz that follows and a brief improvisatory passage leads to the funeral march that closes the work all but for 12 bars of the original's tranquil ending.
A two piano work called Ivernia, designated op.70 was performed a couple of times in 1910 but withdrawn for revision. The revision never appeared perhaps because of the death of her husband in the same year and the work is considered lost but reports suggest that it was based on Irish folk tunes – Ivernia is an old name for Éire. It seems clear that the Suite for 2 Pianos founded upon Old Irish Melodies was at the very least influenced by the earlier work; it was published in 1924 and premiered by its dedicatees, the piano duo sisters Rose and Ottilie Sutro. The first movement prélude opens with a quite dissonant fantasy-like introduction before the theme enters, Fonncodail; Irish lullaby; its lilt may be that of a cradle song but Beach allows it to grow into a grandiloquent sweeping structure, its melody played strongly against heroic octaves and arpeggios only dying into tranquility toward the end. The second movement, old time peasant dance, is a set of variations above a 16 bar ostinato jig. The mood calms for a change of key to the warmth of D flat major whereupon a new melody, Fuaim na dtonn (the sound of the waves) enters with the jig still playing underneath. This is all further developed before the dance fades away in a quick rush of fleet footsteps. The enigmatic introduction reappears at the opening of the third movement, the ancient cabin, before the tune Maire St. Seorse (Molly St. George) starts and while this is mostly a tranquil nocturne with some beautiful harmonic touches Beach once again brings a virtuosic grand rendition of the music in the central section. The theme may be Irish but I was struck by a strong sense of Russian romanticism in the harmonies and keyboard figurations of the latter half. The finale opens with virtuosic flourishes but settles down into a fugue based on an untitled violin melody, developed in inversion, stretto and gradually in more romantic style. A sudden stop brings us to the brief, contrapuntal and humorous presto coda.
I was hugely impressed by the duo of Aglika Genova and Liuben Dimitrov in their disc of the complete works for 2 pianists of Rachmaninov (CPO 5553262 review) and find myself even more impressed here. This music is beautifully written for the instruments and the duo play with virtuosity, impeccable ensemble and a great flair for characterisation. A hugely enjoyable disc.
Rob Challinor
