Abstract
This chapter explores nature, gender, and narrative in three piano works by American composer Amy Beach (1867–1944). Structural and hermeneutic analysis of Beach’s Four Sketches (1892), Eskimos (1907), and From Grandmother’s Garden (1922) reveals how nature imagery is strategically interwoven with synaesthetic key associations and the rejection of gendered musical teleology. This analysis also demonstrates how Beach’s synaesthesia relates to narratives of nature and loss, and assertion of female agency. Beach’s compositional strategies collectively present an authentic and agentic female voice. Eskimos destabilises traditional masculine constructs in both its background structure and the harmonic isolation of the third movement, while synaesthetic associations enrich the imagery of each piece. Flower symbolism and synaesthetic associations in From Grandmother’s Garden work in tandem to convey an elegiac narrative, and the key structure of the work suggests underlying temporal nonlinearity connected to a female experience of grief. The narrative of Four Sketches also involves loss. The opposition of green and black colours (the keys of A major and F-sharp minor) brings mortality and the opposition of life and death into sharp focus. An examination of these works reveals narratives of agentic, non-idealised women who dare to defy the expectations of gender.
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Notes
- 1.
Philip Hale, Program notes, “‘La Tirelitentaine’ and ‘Cache-Cache Mitoula,’ from ‘Jeux De Plein Air’ (Out-door Games), Germaine Tailleferre” (Carnegie Hall, March 13, 1926).
- 2.
Denise Von Glahn, Music and the Skillful Listener: Women Compose the Natural World (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013): 21.
- 3.
Denise Von Glahn, “American Women and the Nature of Identity,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 64, no. 2 (2011): 399.
- 4.
Von Glahn, “American Woman,” 400.
- 5.
A.B. Marx, Musical Form in the Age of Beethoven: Selected Writings on Theory and Method, ed. and trans. Scott Burnham (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 133.
- 6.
Arnold Schoenberg, Theory of Harmony, trans. Roy E. Carter (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978), 129.
- 7.
Susan McClary, Feminine Endings: Music, Gender, and Sexuality (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1991), 15.
- 8.
Charles Ford, Music, Sexuality, and the Enlightenment in Mozart’s Figaro, Don Giovanni and Cosi fan tutte (New York: Routledge, 2016), 19–20.
- 9.
James Hepokoski, “Masculine. Feminine. Are Current Readings of Sonata Form in Terms of a ‘Masculine’ and ‘Feminine’ Dichotomy Exaggerated? James Hepokoski Argues for a More Subtle Approach to the Politics of Musical Form,” The Musical Times 135, no. 1818 (1994): 499.
- 10.
Hepokoski, “Masculine. Feminine,” 499.
- 11.
Lawrence Kramer, Music as Cultural Practice, 1800–1900 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), 107.
- 12.
Desmond C. Sergeant and Evangelos Himonides, “Gender and Music Composition: A Study of Music, and the Gendering of Meanings,” Frontiers in Psychology 7, no. 411 (2016): 10–11.
- 13.
Sergeant and Himonides, “Gender and Music Composition,” 10–11.
- 14.
At the time Beach wrote these piano pieces, ‘Eskimo’ was a widely-used term for the Indigenous peoples of Arctic Canada, Alaska, Greenland, and parts of Siberia. Today this usage is considered outdated and often pejorative. In this chapter, excepting direct mention of the titles of Beach’s Opus 64 and Boas’ monograph, I use the more widely preferred term ‘Inuit’ to refer to the Indigenous communities of Nunavut, Canada, whose songs are referenced here.
- 15.
Adrienne Fried Block, Amy Beach, Passionate Victorian (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998): 126.
- 16.
Adrienne Fried Block, “Amy Beach’s Music on Native American Themes,” American Music 8, no. 2 (1990): 146.
- 17.
Block, Amy Beach, 126.
- 18.
Stijn V. Mentzel, Linda Schücker, Norbert Hagemann, and Bernd Strauss, “Emotionality of Colors: An Implicit Link Between Red and Dominance,” Frontiers in Psychology 8, no. 317 (2017): 3–5.
- 19.
Franz Boas, “The Eskimo of Baffin Land and Hudson Bay: from Notes Collected by George Comer, James S. Mutch, and E.J. Peck,” Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, vol. 15, part 1 (1901): 222–26.
- 20.
Annette Stott, “Floral Femininity: A Pictorial Definition,” American Art 6, no.2 (1992): 61.
- 21.
Stott, “Floral Femininity,” 61–62, 72–73.
- 22.
Daniela and Bernd Willimek, Music and Emotions: Research on the Theory of Musical Equilibration (die Strebetendenz Theorie), trans. Laura Russell (Germany: self-published, 2013), 18–20.
- 23.
Julia Kristeva, “Women’s Time,” trans. Alice Jardine and Harry Blake. Signs 7, no. 1 (1981): 15–18.
- 24.
Alphonse de Lamartine, “Autumn (L’automne),” in Solitude, and Other Poems, with Translations from the “Meditations Poetiques” of Lamartine and from Metastasio, ed. and trans. J. C. (London: Hookham, c. 1830), 105. “Feuillages jaunissants sur les gazons epars.”
- 25.
Lamartine, “Autumn,” 109. “Moi, je meurs; et mon âme, au moment qu’elle expire / S’exhale comme un son triste et melodieux!”
- 26.
Victor Hugo, “Phantoms (Fantômes),” in Translations from the Poems of Victor Hugo, ed. and trans. Henry Carrington (London: Walter Scott, 1885), 62. “Toutes fragiles fleurs, sitôt mortes que nées.”
- 27.
Hugo, “Phantoms,” 65. “Ainsi qu’Ophélia par le fleuve entraînée / Elle est morte en cueillant des fleurs!”
- 28.
Hugo, “Phantoms,” 61. “Hélas! que j’en ai vu mourir de jeunes filles! / C’est le destin. Il faut une proie au trépas.”
- 29.
Hugo, “Phantoms,” 61. “Oui, c’est la vie. Après le jour, la nuit livide. / Après tout, le réveil, infernal ou divin.”
- 30.
Lamartine, “The Butterfly (Le papillon),” 83. “Naître avec le printemps, mourir avec les roses.”
References
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———. Four Sketches, Op. 15. Boston: Arthur P. Schmidt, 1892.
———. From Grandmother’s Garden, Op. 97. Boca Raton: Ludwig Masters Publications, 1944.
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———. Amy Beach, Passionate Victorian. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.
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———. “The Eskimo of Baffin Land and Hudson Bay: from Notes Collected by George Comer, James S. Mutch, and E.J. Peck.” Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 15, no. 1 (1901): 1–370.
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Ford, Charles. Music, Sexuality, and the Enlightenment in Mozart’s Figaro, Don Giovanni, and Così fan tutte. New York: Routledge, 2016.
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Hepokoski, James. “Masculine. Feminine. Are Current Readings of Sonata Form in Terms of a ‘Masculine’ and ‘Feminine’ Dichotomy Exaggerated? James Hepokoski Argues for a More Subtle Approach to the Politics of Musical Form.” The Musical Times 135, no. 1818 (1994): 494–499.
Hugo, Victor. “Phantoms (Fantômes).” In Translations from the Poems of Victor Hugo, edited and translated by Henry Carrington, 61–65. London: Walter Scott, 1885.
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——— “The Butterfly (Le papillon).” In Echoes from the French Poets: An Anthology, edited and translated by Harry Curwen, 83. London: John Camden Hotten, 1870.
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Kramer, Lawrence. Music as Cultural Practice, 1800–1900. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990.
Marx, A.B. Musical Form in the Age of Beethoven: Selected Writings on Theory and Method. Edited and translated by Scott Burnham. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Mentzel, Stijn V., Linda Schücker, Norbert Hagemann, and Bernd Strauss. “Emotionality of Colors: An Implicit Link Between Red and Dominance.” Frontiers in Psychology 8, no 317 (2017): 1–6.
McClary, Susan. Feminine Endings: Music, Gender, and Sexuality. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1991.
Schoenberg, Arnold. Theory of Harmony. Translated by Roy E. Carter. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978.
Sergeant, Desmond C. and Evangelos Himonides. “Gender and Music Composition: A Study of Music, and the Gendering of Meanings.” Frontiers in Psychology 7, no. 411 (2016): 1–15.
Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Edited by Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine. New York: Washington Square Press, 2004.
Stott, Annette. “Floral Femininity: A Pictorial Definition.” American Art 6, no. 2 (1992): 60–77.
Von Glahn, Denise. “American Women and the Nature of Identity.” Journal of the American Musicological Society 64, no. 2 (2011): 399–403.
———. Von Glahn, Denise. Music and the Skillful Listener: Women Compose the Natural World. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013.
Willimek, Daniela and Bernd Willimek. Music and Emotions: Research on the Theory of Musical Equilibration (die Strebetendenz Theorie). Translated by Laura Russell. Germany: self-published, 2013.
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Clarke, S. (2022). Synaesthetic Associations and Gendered Nature Imagery: Female Agency in the Piano Music of Amy Beach. In: Kouvaras, L., Grenfell, M., Williams, N. (eds) A Century of Composition by Women. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-95557-1_2
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