Amy Beach

One of a handful of successful woman composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Amy Marcy Cheney Beach fell into this role almost by accident. Her real goal was to be a concert pianist, but her husband forbade such a life for his wife. She was born about two years after the end of the Civil War and lived until the final months of World War II, a period that saw immense changes in music, and women's role in making it, all of which she played a substantial part in changing. A music prodigy from the age of one, Amy Cheney taught herself to read at two, and by four she...