Amy Beach Gender Roles
Throughout the nineteenth century, female composers were blatantly undermined in music composition against their male contemporaries through patriarchal conventions. They were discouraged and even condemned from producing orchestras that would violate the image of an “accomplished woman”. Within George Upton’s book Woman in Music, he underlines the faults of women being unable to perform in the professional music industry and attributes unstable emotions as the reason for their failure. Although misogynistic norms deemed women as emotionally unstable, scientifically impaired, and virtually unfit to compete with the musical canon, Amy Beach transcended the role of a docile woman. Her most renowned symphony, the Gaelic Symphony, demonstrates
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Although Amy Beach’s symphonies were held under her husband’s name, H.H.A. Beach, and could only perform a limited amount of concerts, she paved a unique sense of agency. George Upton purports that women such as Beach cannot compose, as he exclaims that a “woman does not musically reproduce [music] because she herself is emotional by temperament and nature” (Upton, 23). While the musical composer Amy Beach adhered to stereotypical gender roles, she did so intuitively in order to further advance in the musical world. Upton’s false claim of attributing emotional instability to women can be easily contrasted to the grand works of her Mass in E flat, Piano Concerto and most importantly, her Gaelic Symphony. All the works hold a grandiose and demanding air within her music, and specifically within her Gaelic Symphony does Amy Beach exert her full potential in composing a large symphony. Beach not only pushes further by rejecting the emotional instability of women, but was able to replace the stereotype of docility in women into capability in women. Thus, despite the limited restrictions that her husband placed on her, Beach transcends the typical view of a subservient woman and represents a progression in instilling agency for women in the musical and socio-cultural
Although Amy Beach’s symphonies were held under her husband’s name, H.H.A. Beach, and could only perform a limited amount of concerts, she paved a unique sense of agency. George Upton purports that women such as Beach cannot compose, as he exclaims that a “woman does not musically reproduce [music] because she herself is emotional by temperament and nature” (Upton, 23). While the musical composer Amy Beach adhered to stereotypical gender roles, she did so intuitively in order to further advance in the musical world. Upton’s false claim of attributing emotional instability to women can be easily contrasted to the grand works of her Mass in E flat, Piano Concerto and most importantly, her Gaelic Symphony. All the works hold a grandiose and demanding air within her music, and specifically within her Gaelic Symphony does Amy Beach exert her full potential in composing a large symphony. Beach not only pushes further by rejecting the emotional instability of women, but was able to replace the stereotype of docility in women into capability in women. Thus, despite the limited restrictions that her husband placed on her, Beach transcends the typical view of a subservient woman and represents a progression in instilling agency for women in the musical and socio-cultural