The only Piano Concerto by American composer Amy Beach is somewhat autobiographical of her past and portentous of her future. A child prodigy who knew early on that "no other life than that of a musician could ever have been possible for me" was allowed to study piano but her parents restricted her from a full career in music especially as a performer. She married at 18 to a doctor who continued this prohibition on performance but allowed her to compose. So she self-studied composition and orchestration and composed prodigiously, with nearly all her works published and performed in her lifetime. Her "Gaelic" Symphony from 1894 was an instant success in America and abroad and was the first symphony to be composed and published by an American female, as was her only Piano Concerto from 1899.

Her physician husband was also an amateur singer who wrote poetry which Amy set to music as songs whose themes she used in three movements of her Piano Concerto. One can imagine that the second movement is autobiographical, a comment on her husband’s prohibition of her pursuits, and a portent of things to come. She gives the vocal line of her song (his text; dedicated to Amy’s mother) “Empress of the Night” to the strings which is all but drowned out and quashed by the perpetuum mobile solo piano playing insistently atop it. Within ten years of her Piano Concerto's premiere (with the Boston Symphony Orchestra) her husband and mother died, releasing her from the restrictions they put on her. She then took advantage of this freedom to pursue her lifelong desire as a concert pianist with successful tours of Europe and America to great acclaim, including many performances of her Piano Concerto. For Amy Beach’s birthday today, it's our Midday Masterpiece today at 2:00 pm.