A pioneering figure in American classical music, Amy Marcy Cheney Beach (1867-1944) was one of the first women to be widely acclaimed as a composer. After she showed great musical talent as a child, her family moved to Boston, where they only gave their daughter local training, despite entreaties from friends to send her to Europe. At age 18, she married 42-year-old surgeon Dr. Henry Harris Aubrey Beach. At his insistence, she signed her name “Mrs. H.H.A. Beach” and never studied composition with a tutor, both common restrictions among women of the time.

Though her large-scale compositions earned her the most fame, her works for voice and piano were more popular with the public. Her music is mostly in a Romantic vein, though she came to experiment with exotic harmonies and whole tone scales late in her career.