Mrs. Beach's Symphony, an American Original
by Robert Debbaut
In 1896 the Boston Symphony made history by premiering a symphony by an American woman composer. That remarkable woman, composer and concert pianist Amy Marcy Cheney Beach, was immediately the source of admiration of countless young women desirous of careers in music that society denied them because of their gender. 2017 marks the sesquicentennial of her birth. This book began in 1998 as a doctoral project written by the author in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Musical Arts from the University of Michigan School of Music. Until September 2016 it had a comfortable home in the author's filing cabinet. One night's insomnia allowed it to see the light of day and to be brought forth for publication.Within the book are some basic background information on Mrs. Beach, as well as a brief analysis of the major thematic material of her symphony, subtitled "Gaelic" (which was due to the style of her original thematic material rather than her borrowing from folk song sources), as well as an errata list derived from the only published score and parts and further information about her symphony's performance history (Leopold Stokowski loved this work) as well as information about her other works for the orchestra.Following the premiere of her symphony George Whitefield Chadwick, arguably the dean of living American composers, pronounced her to be "one of the boys." Unlike "the boys," MRS. H. H. A. Beach agreed to spend almost all of her creative life in Boston as the dutiful wife of Dr. Beach, her husband and a man some twenty-five years her senior. It was only following his death that she became on demand across North America and in Europe as a concert soloist and composer.Many would argue that conditions are not much better for women composers today. Nonetheless, all concerned owe a debt to Amy Beach for her prolific perseverance at composing. While her well-crafted works definitely cling to the compositional style of the Nineteenth Century, they are surely deserving of hearing and performing. It is this author's opinion that Mrs. Beach's symphony is every bit as well-crafted as the vast majority of works from her era and that the only reason it has not enjoyed a richer performance history is because it was written by a woman, a remarkable woman to whom every female musician owes a great debt.
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Author Biography
Robert Debbaut has led orchestras and opera companies in the United States as well as in Central and North America, Asia and Europe. Critics have called Robert Debbaut "a world-class conductor" (Salt Lake Tribune) possessing "an incisiveness verging on the dance" (Kansas City Star) and as "a conductor with the force of emotions in his direction." (Prensa Libre Guatemala). As guest conductor, Robert Debbaut has led many orchestras including the Chicago Chamber Orchestra, Chicago Philharmonic, Czech Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra, DePaul Opera Theatre, Filharmonia Sudecka (Poland), Hartford Symphony, International Symphony Orchestra (Canada), Kharkiv Philharmonic Ukraine), Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony of Guatemala, North Bohemian Philharmonic, Pärnu Linnaorchester (Estonia), Great Novgorod Chamber Orchestra (Russia), Salt Lake Symphony, Saint Petersburg Classic Orchestra, San Juan Symphony, Shanghai Conservatory Orchestra, Utah Opera, Utah Symphony and the Yaroslavl Symphony Orchestra (Russia) among many others. Dr. Debbaut is also a composer. Recent performances have included his suite for string orchestra, "Great New City," "Variations on a Theme of Mozart 'Komm, lieber Mai'" for flute and piano and viola and piano and "Birch Trees," a cycle of four Russian folk songs arranged for SSA Chorus with piano accompaniment and violin obbligato. Dr. Debbaut has enjoyed a distinguished record of service in higher education. As Director of Orchestras at the University of Utah his orchestras received three awards in Down Beat Magazine's annual student music award for "best classical orchestral performance" and two awards from ASCAP for the programming of contemporary American music. In addition to his work in Utah, Dr. Debbaut held visiting positions at DePaul University, the Lawrence Conservatory, the University of Akron and the University of Minnesota. Robert Debbaut holds three degrees in music including Doctor of Musical Arts in Conducting from the University of Michigan where he was the first American conductor to be Fellow in Conducting. In addition Robert Debbaut studied at the David Oistrakh Festival in Estonia (Prize and Diploma), the International Conducting Workshop in Prague, the Oregon Bach Festival and the Tanglewood Music Center where he was the first recipient of the Maurice Abravanel Award. His teachers and mentors include Neeme Järvi, Gustav Meier, Helmuth Rilling and the late Maurice Abravanel.
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