Amy Beach on Two Pianos

Late this past August, I learned of another opportunity to listen to the music of Amy Beach. Some readers may already know, through this site, that I have had considerable interest in this composer, who played a major role in the release of the 20th-Century Women Composers album by the Trio des Alpes in April of 2015. Her “latest appearance,” so to speak, will take place this coming Friday on the album American Dream, which will be released by Alpha. As most readers will expect by now, Amazon.com has already created a Web page for taking pre-orders.

Ludmila Berlinskaya and Arthur Ancelle on the cover of their American Dream album (from the Amazon.com Web page)

Beach serves as the “keystone” in this album of works for two pianos composed during the first half of the twentieth century. The full title of her work is Suite for Two Pianos Founded upon Old Irish Melodies, and it is her Opus 104. She is preceded on the album by Dana Suesse, born about half a century after her. Suesse got her start composing hit songs for Bing Crosby but used the assets from her success to study under Nadia Boulanger in Paris. Her contribution to this album is a concero for two pianos and orchestra composed in 1943. The album then concludes with another concerto for two pianos and orchestra, this one by Victor Babin, best known for his duo-piano performances with Vitya Vronsky. The pianists on this album are Arthur Ancelle and Ludmila Berlinskaya, performing with the Orchestre Victor Hugo. Jean-François Verdier conducts the Suesse concerto, and the Babin concerto is conducted by Laurent Cómte.

The Vronsky-Babin partnership was a popular one when I was growing up in the second half of the twentieth century. I do not think I ever attended one of their performances, but I definitely knew about them through the radio. That, of course, was a time when I had not yet heard of either Suesse or Beach (and I am pretty sure that the same would be true of any of my music teachers). The fact is that the “dream” in the title of this album is the shared desire of these three composers to be taken seriously by their male colleagues. (Indeed, one might even say that the “dream” was to be recognized as colleagues at all!)

Personally, the good news in this album is the opportunity to listen to another composition in the Beach catalog. I fear that Babin was more in his element as a pianist; and I must confess that, while listening to the performance of his concerto, my only annotation was “ersatz Hindemith!” (Mind you, this could easily have been taken as praise during the middle of the last century.) Presumably, Suesse’s concerto is a reflection of Boulanger’s influence. This may have garnered her attention during her lifetime, but the interpretation of her concerto by Arthur Ancelle and Ludmila Berlinskaya never really gets the juices flowing.

Presumably, this album was conceived as a “dream” of the last century. I am glad that I have many fond memories of the second half of that century. However, those memories only include Babin as a pianist; and, at that time, I knew nothing of his efforts as a composer! If lovers of William Shakespeare will forgive me, I came away from listening to this album feeling that “American dreams” should be made of “sterner stuff!”