|
|
|
|
I sat down with Tawa’s paragraph and dissected it.
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
Amy Beach Was Not Succinct
|
|
“The compositions of Amy Beach contain melodies of expansive length” (Tawa)
I agreed with this in regard to Beach’s large works, the first compositions I listened to. When I first heard Beach’s Gaelic Symphony, Eb Mass and Piano Concerto in C Sharp Minor, many of the passages bored me, seemed overly long and repetitive. But, most all of the reviews I’d read in biographer Adrienne Block’s books were highly complimentary. Both Block, and Jenkins held Beach high on a pedestal. I determined that I had the right, the duty in fact, to pull Beach down from that pedestal and look at her straight on. It was okay for me to agree with Tawa’s “expansive” criticism.
|
|
|
A Rose by Any Other Name
|
|
|
“A few [compositions] sound naively lovely, especially when she uses folk tunes” (Tawa)
Why does Tawa use “naively” to describe how Beach’s work is lovely?
The passages are lovely or they are not
|
|
|
it seems to me.
|
|
|
What kind of an underhanded insult is it to state that what is lovely is only naively, accidentally, so? (I am leaving in the crossed out ‘it seems to me’ so that the readers can actually watch the process of a woman, me, finding her bold voice here.)
continues on page 17, The Musicologist and I
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
 |
