Amy Beach - Variations on Balkan Themes Op.60

Performer: Joanne Polk
0:00 - Theme: Adagio malincolico
1:38 - I. Più mosso
2:50 - II. Maestoso
4:12 - III. Allegro ma non troppo
5:18 - IV. Andante alla Barcarola
7:18 - V. Largo con molta espressione /Poco più mosso
10:32 - VI. Quasi Fantasia/Allegro all' 'Ongarese
13:12 - VII. Vivace/Valse lento
15:34 - VIII. Con vigore/Lento calmato
17:54 - Marcia funerale
22:58 - Cadenza. Grave/Quasi fantasia/Maestoso come Var.IIdo/Adagio come prima
Liner notes:
Amy Beach (1867-1944) wrote: “How inevitable it was that music should be my life’s work. Both in composition and piano playing, there seemed to be such a strong attraction… that no other life than that of a musician could ever have been possible for me.” Beach’s compositions for piano are products of those powerful dual attractions.
At age sixteen she made her debut in Boston as a concert pianist; within two years she was playing solo with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. A few years later she had an equally stunning breakthrough as a composer with the premiere of her monumental Mass in E-Flat, Op. 5, for vocal soloists, chorus, and orchestra. This led to her acceptance as a member of the Second New England School of composers. Beach found further support for her concert career and her compositions from the major performing organizations in Boston who presented her works. Over a lifetime she created over 300 compositions, almost all published and performed in the United States, Europe, and as far away as Australia.
Born Amy Marcy Cheney in the small town of Henniker, New Hampshire, she was brought up in Boston, where at age 18 she married Dr. Henry Harris Aubrey Beach. At his request, she agreed to limit her public appearances as a concert pianist to one or two a year and concentrate on composition, a calling her husband considered more appropriate to her new status as a society matron. Increasingly, she introduced her own works on her annual recitals.
In 1904, she created a major and deeply affecting work, Variations on Balkan Themes, Op. 60, that quickly became a staple of her recital repertory. Its composition grew out of an abiding interest in folk music. Although Balkan folk songs were not part of the American musical mainstream, the region was much on the minds of the American public at the time. A recent uprising by Macedonian nationalists had provoked cruel and repressive measures by the ruling Turks.
Beach created the variations out of not one but four themes given to her by a missionary to the Balkans: O Maiko Moyá, Stara Planina, Nasadil ye Dadó (Grandpa has Planted a Little Garden) - a children’s dance song, and a lament entitled Macedonian!.
While the use of more than one theme is unusual for a variation form, the Serbian song, O Maiko Moyá, is the principal theme, and appears in each of the eight variations, in the cadenza, and the coda. Its text, in the translation printed in Beach’s edition, reads:
O my poor country, to thy sons so dear,
Why art thou weeping, why this sadness drear?
Alas! thou raven, messenger of woe,
Over whose fresh grave moanest thou so?
The words refer to the toll in lives taken by the foreign rulers of Serbia some time during their five-century-long domination of what later became part of Yugoslavia.
Beach wrote that she introduced the other melodies for their dramatic effect and to set off the melancholy character of the principal theme. The distinctive elements in these Balkan melodies lend an exotic flavor to almost every variation - the pathos-laden augmented seconds, the changes from minor to major, the alternation of duple and triple meters, and the modal scales on which the melodies are based. Beach however set these exotic melodies to lush late-Romantic harmonies that suggest western rather than eastern Europe, while creating a tragic quality that fits the subject. Beach, once seized by an idea, worked very quickly, in this case completing the variations in eight days. The work is by turns a lament (Theme and Variation 1), a dramatically gestural polonaise (Variation 2), a scherzo (variation 3), a barcarolle (Variation 4), a cantabile variation in the major mode (Variation 5), a fantasy on three of the four themes (Variation 6), a slow bitter-sweet waltz (Variation 7), and a recitative and funeral march that rises to a dramatic climax (Variation 8). These are capped by a Lisztian cadenza in which three of the four themes are recapitulated, ending with the final statement of two themes, O Maiko Mayó and Macedonian!. One of their most effective solo piano works, it is presented here in its original version (a revised edition for solo piano appeared in 1936).
Beach gave the premiere while the variations were still in manuscript, on 8 February 1905 at a piano recital at Huntington Chambers Hall in Boston. The reviewer for the Boston Evening Transcript was impressed, stating that from the four themes “Mrs. Beach has developed a series of compositions marked by deep feeling and great variety and richness.”

[@ChrisBreemer]

An absolutely first-rate set of variations, romantic, sumptuous and full of Lisztian virtuosity. It is about time Any Beach gets recognition as a major piano composer.

[@exploremusic2182]

I am currently writing a paper on Amy Beach's most influential piano works and this piece is absolutely stunning! It is amazing to read about how genius she was and yet she is so little performed or talked about today. Thank you Joanne Polk and Kirsten Johnson for your extensive beautifully performed works of Amy Beach!

[@carlkulzer5982]

Thank you so much for this great work. I am 86, and this is my first hearing. I have listened to her symphony, and piano concerto. Your notes are excellent, so is Ms. Polk, the performer. Best regards.

[@kniazigor2276]

Très belle découverte !

[@umegghju]

Non la conoscevo. Interessante, devo cercare altro

[@tobalation]

Masterful. Thank you for a prefect introduction to Amy Beach's music

[@Nogah100]

The Great Amy Beach!!!

[@alexsandronascimento9048]

Beautiful and superb music!

[@michaelball9393]

She drew from the best of romanticism and modernism. The nerve and the energy under great control, the flowing but dialogic harmony place her dead square between Beethoven and Chopin for piano technique. Her tonality and fingerings identify her as American, several of her works are quintessentially American,my favorite being her unique but unexcitedly titled "Quartet for Strings," which is QUITE interesting. I compare Amy Beach favorably with Florence Price for spirit, though their moods and rigors are quite different.

[@Medtnaculuss]

Nice video, beautiful piece.

[@rositapiritore]

Simply wonderfull.

[@RobinLSL]

Very interesting piece! I'm gonna listen to it a bunch more.

[@harryandruschak2843]

First time I have heard this piece, and a delight it is. Voting "like" and subscribing.

[@alejandrodiaz6457]

Thank you. I quite enjoy the fifth variation (7:18).

[@Starnislav_]

Благодарствую, соскриншотил!

[@pianistyoungsunchoi7604]

Var 6 O Maiko Moya 11:33 Coda (Nasadil) 12:14

[@fredericchopin7538]

Magnificent!

[@gabrieletomasello]

Very interesting!

[@rodterrell304]

❤

[@derby2510]

It's a lot to digest, but I wish that in the more expressive variations, the pianist would pick a tempo and base her rubato off of that instead of playing every measure in a different tempo. In Variation 5, an expressive variation, she plays in tempo and it comes off beautifully. But by the middle of the piece, things go awry. Made me seasick.

[@christianmuch2409]

With all due respect to a great piece of piano music: Could it be that the problem also lies in the piece itself? No doubt, it is beautifully written from a pianistic point of view and packed with interesting harmonic twists. But precisely when the variations aren't anymore on the first melody, but on two or three other ones that are built on more "exotic" (Bulgarian) scales and are somewhat harder to be embellished with Lisztian fireworks (= the variations after n° 5) - precisely from that moment onward the melodic flow sometimes seems to hesitate and to steer into dead-end phrases (ending in a rall. or an organ point), as if the composer felt less comfortable with this musical material.

[@rexy7399]

Wait, is that some Alkan reference in Marcia funerale?

[@marfox23]

maybe i could be wrongbut it seems to me to note some Rachmaninov's influence.

[@thomasrobertson2533]

How can anybody play measures 135-142 without three hands?

[@alexcellothere]

From what I see, the whole reason for the split is so the LH (left hand) melody can be brought out, so the LH accompaniment is put on the 3rd staff. The 2nd and 3rd staff are both play by the LH, though - entirely possible.

[@nikolai5012]

lower and middle staff both played with LH