Amy Beach - Prelude and Fugue Op.81

Amy Beach (1867 - 1944) - Prelude and Fugue, Op.81 (1912-1917)
Fugue begins at 4:15.
Performer: Kirsten Johnson
Album: Amy Beach, Piano Music: Volume 3 - The Mature Years (Guild #GMCD 7351, 2011)
From AllMusic (www.allmusic.com/composition/p...
"When Amy Marcy Cheney (1867 - 1944) married Dr. H.H.A. Beach at the age of 18, this highly promising pianist and composer agreed to take on the role of a Boston society matron. This made it impossible for her to play more than a couple of public recitals a year, but gave her much time and freedom for composition. After Dr. Beach died in 1910, she decided to establish a concert career. Her first stop was Europe, where she armed herself with glowing reviews of her piano playing and German judgments of the high quality of her compositions, one of which even proclaimed her a genius.
When she returned to Boston she gave the premiere of this composition, which she had begun under the inspiration of a magnificent view from her hotel room in the Austrian Tyrol. The prelude and the fugue are built on the same subject, which is derived from her exceptionally musical name, "A-B-E-A-C-H" (the German system's lettering for A, B flat, E, A, C, B). This, fortuitously, resembles the widely used "B-A-C-H" motive, with two extra notes added. The prelude is in the character of an improvisation on the six-note theme. The fugue is an exuberant display piece along the lines of Liszt's Fantasia and Fugue on the Theme B-A-C-H. It is a double fugue, built on the ABEACH theme and a transformation of it. The ending of the fugue is exceptionally difficult for the pianist, with both subjects presented in augmentation against a third theme in octaves."

[@ChrisBreemer]

Wow, what a magnificent piece ! More than anything it reminds me of Glazunov's Preludes and Fugues Op.101 which are similar in their colossal scope and huge demands on the performer. I always had the impression Beach was primarily a miniaturist, but will have to revise that view now. She could roar and thunder with the best.

[@pilouetmissiou]

what a piece of music ! she must have been a strong pianist herself to write such a piece..

[@pablokalincausky8359]

Simply sublime beauty !!!...

[@Sotteot]

Thanks much for taking the time to make this

[@timward276]

If I didn't already know Beach was an incredible pianist and composer, knowing that she wrote and performed this piece would prove it.

[@mrknesiah]

Beautiful

[@garrysmith6734]

I wish I'd have kept up with my piano lessons, I get the music notes displayed but only to a degree, it looks damned complicated. And AmY Beach was a child prodigy, incredible.

[@profpf]

Compare to the final movement of the violin sonata...

[@rinusspranger9804]

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[@RichardASalisbury1]

Wow! The fugue is a mile away from Bach, but masterful nonetheless.