Product Description
In January of 1894, Amy Beach began composing her most ambitious and extensive work, the Gaelic Symphony, op. 32. Completed in the spring of 1896, the four movement work was inspired by a collection of Gaelic folk tunes. Beach later explained: Their simple, rugged and unpretentious beauty led me to try to develop their ideas in symphonic form. The work was so fascinating that I decided to systematize it seriously, and the Gaelic symphony is the result. Most of the themes are actual quotations from this collection of folk music and those which are original I have tried to keep in the same idiom and spirit. The premiere of the Gaelic Symphony took place on October 30, 1896, by the Boston Symphony Orchestra. During the next twenty years or so, the work was presented in New York, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Kansas City, Detroit, Buffalo, Minneapolis, San Francisco, Leipzig and Hamburg. The fourth movement has proven to be an excellent example for the Concert/Wind Band.