Piano Trio Op. 150 - Amy Beach (Score)

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Score of Amy Beach's sole Piano Trio, Op. 150, composed in 1938. Having written it when she was already 70 years old, its mature style is freer and more tonally ambiguous than her first works [you can contrast it with 'Rêves de Colombine':    • Les Rêves de Colombine - Amy Beach (S...  ]. Nevertheless, Beach still favours a clear conservative post-romantic approach, just like many other composers (such as Rachmaninoff) that stretched their style through the 20th century despite being considered old-fashioned by the modernists and avant-gardists of their time.

Beach was part of the Second New England School, also known as the 'Boston Six', a group that served as a pivoting point for American classical music in its separation and distiction from the European tradition. There are still reminiscences of French style in the first movement - specially of Franck, Debussy and even some Ravel - but the next two use folk-like rhythms and tunes from American indigenous people, which were the main focus and inspiration of those composers. The 'presto' theme at 8:02 is an allusion to Inuit sonorities (the aborigines of Alaska), and she already used it in her four-piece set 'Eskimos' Op. 64 [   • Amy Beach - Eskimos, Op.64  ]. On the other hand, the final movement's main theme at 11:36 is a common ragtime syncopated rhythm used in cakewalks, a dance that originated in black slave plantations; Debussy famously uses it in his piece 'Golliwog's Cakewalk' [   • Debussy's "Golliwogg's Cakewalk", per...  ] and 'The Little Nigar' [   • LCM Piano 2013-2017 Grade 6 List C2 D...  ] (of course, Debussy's view was very different from Amy's and understood it satirically and mockingly)

00:00 - (Introduction)
00:15 - I. Allegro
05:41 - II. Lento espressivo / Presto
11:29 - III. Allegro con brio

Performers: Mendelssohn Piano Trio; Ya-Ting Chang (piano); Peter Sirotin (violin); Fiona Thompson (cello)