![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
OK, now it's time to post the week's lesser-known masterpiece.
This week, it's a piece from CalCap: a Theme and Variations for flute and string quartet by Amy Beach (1867-1944). Beach is mainly known for being the first American woman to compose a symphony, and for being one of the "Boston Six" who created the first successful American body of art music. Her best known works, enjoying somewhat of a revival today, are her Gaelic Symphony and her Piano Concerto, along with a number of pieces for violin and piano.
Beach's Theme and Variations, though, is arguably her most accomplished work. It was composed in 1915-16, on a commission by the Chamber Music Society of San Francisco. The theme, played by the string quartet alone, is taken from one of Beach's art songs, An Indian Lullaby. A flute cadenza introduces the first variation, a quasi-fantasia in the same tempo as the theme that maintains a sense of uncertainty by avoiding cadences for most of its length. The second variation is a lively fugue on an inversion of the opening line of the theme. The third is slow, marked "quasi-Valzer" in the score and parts, and mostly expands a single chromatic line in the theme into an entire variation. The fourth variation, the shortest of the set, resembles a flute concerto movement: the strings play dense, rapid counterpoint, while the flute plays a lyrical, contrasting solo line. The fifth variation, the most expansive, seems to sum up the piece by referring back to earlier movements, with bits of the fourth, then first variations coming back. The sixth and final variation is again fugue-like, on a subject resembling a fragment of the theme. The original theme returns in a coda to the sixth variation, but where it was played by the strings alone when first heard, the piece ends with the last melodic phrase being played by solo flute.
Movements:
Theme (0:00)
Variation I (2:37)
Variation II (5:35)
Variation III (7:12)
Variation IV (9:01)
Variation V (9:57)
Variation VI (16:52)
This week, it's a piece from CalCap: a Theme and Variations for flute and string quartet by Amy Beach (1867-1944). Beach is mainly known for being the first American woman to compose a symphony, and for being one of the "Boston Six" who created the first successful American body of art music. Her best known works, enjoying somewhat of a revival today, are her Gaelic Symphony and her Piano Concerto, along with a number of pieces for violin and piano.
Beach's Theme and Variations, though, is arguably her most accomplished work. It was composed in 1915-16, on a commission by the Chamber Music Society of San Francisco. The theme, played by the string quartet alone, is taken from one of Beach's art songs, An Indian Lullaby. A flute cadenza introduces the first variation, a quasi-fantasia in the same tempo as the theme that maintains a sense of uncertainty by avoiding cadences for most of its length. The second variation is a lively fugue on an inversion of the opening line of the theme. The third is slow, marked "quasi-Valzer" in the score and parts, and mostly expands a single chromatic line in the theme into an entire variation. The fourth variation, the shortest of the set, resembles a flute concerto movement: the strings play dense, rapid counterpoint, while the flute plays a lyrical, contrasting solo line. The fifth variation, the most expansive, seems to sum up the piece by referring back to earlier movements, with bits of the fourth, then first variations coming back. The sixth and final variation is again fugue-like, on a subject resembling a fragment of the theme. The original theme returns in a coda to the sixth variation, but where it was played by the strings alone when first heard, the piece ends with the last melodic phrase being played by solo flute.
Movements:
Theme (0:00)
Variation I (2:37)
Variation II (5:35)
Variation III (7:12)
Variation IV (9:01)
Variation V (9:57)
Variation VI (16:52)