Sit back and relax with the soothing rhythms and charming melodic lines that tangle beautifully in this low-key, yet brilliant music.Today we feature a little known piece by American composer, Amy Beach. If you're hearing it for the first time, you'll want to come back and listen again. It's quirky and fun.
Here Duane Hulbert provides some musical examples to look for in this charming American masterpiece:
@ 0:02, the piece begins with a rising theme in the right hand, while the left hand bounces along underneath with a jaunty accompaniment @)0:42.
The mood changes @ 1:07, where the excitement builds with the arrival of the second theme marked "Animato." Here the new theme suggests a martial type of musical energy.
As we move to the center of the work, a new section shows off Amy Beach's technical prowess @ 1:48. Surging lines of triplets and and exciting 16th note passages in both hands predominate throughout this middle section, with the highlight is the descending double thirds remind us of the same kind of brilliance found in Chopin's Etudes
@2:12. One last bravura passage occurs @2:39, where light and fast two-note phrases bring the brilliant piece to the end. As a final touch, Beach throws in two brilliant fast arpeggios @the end...but the real surprise for pianists is to play them as fast as possible with italics AND at a ppp dynamic level. A surely elegant piece with a bravura touch!
Dr. Hulbert received his BM and MM from The Juilliard School of Music and his DMA from The Manhattan School of Music. Hulbert received the Gold Medal at the 1980 Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition, and also won prizes in the 1981 Leeds Competition and 1985 Carnegie Hall International American Music Competition. He has performed as a soloist with symphonies across the United States and has given recitals at Merkin Hall in New York, Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and Benaroya Hall in Seattle. In 2002, his recording of the piano works of Alexander Glazunov was nominated for a Grammy Award. Dr. Hulbert taught at the university level for over thirty years.
If you value classical music, please subscribe to our channel. Thank you!