Amy Marcy Cheney Beach

Amy Marcy Cheney Beach (September 5, 1867 – December 27, 1944) 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. Amy Beach was born 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 only four years old, and began composing simple waltzes at five years old . 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,...