Ex. 10-10: Ecstasy

"Ecstasy" is the second of Amy Beach's Three Songs (Op. 19), composed in 1891. Beach wrote both the music and the words herself.

Beach was the leading American woman composer of her time. At eighteen she married Dr. H.H.A. Beach, a Boston surgeon twenty-four years older than her. He wanted her to stop performing in public and to compose instead, and she published her music as "Mrs. H.H.A. Beach."

"Ecstasy" became her biggest hit. The royalties from this one song were enough to buy a five-acre property on Cape Cod, where she built a summer cottage and composed for several summers.

In her will, Beach left the rights to her music to the MacDowell Colony, an artists' retreat, so that the income from her works would help support it.

Beach also arranged the song with an added violin part that weaves around the voice — the version heard on this recording. From the album Beach: Chanson d'Amour by Emma Kirkby and the Romantic Chamber Group of London (2002)
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