Amy Beach Piano Trio Analysis of Stability and Instability (Ben)

    Amy Beach's Piano Trio in A minor Op. 150 was written in 1938, this reminiscent piece features 3 movements. The first movement (the movement I focus on in this blog) is an extremely lyrical and expressive movement with a stark contrasting A and B phrase. The second movement, Lento espressivo also has a contrasting A and B phrase, the A phrase is a slow and expressive lament while the B phrase is a bouncy more joyous theme which is similar to the happy finale movement Allegro Con Brio. This final movement features many different themes and tempo markings expressing many different characters. The Piano Trio in A minor was likely one of Amy Beach's last written pieces as she wrote it in the years leading up to her death (1944) which is likely why the piece sounds so reminiscent.

Stability and Instability in Amy Beach's Piano Trio

    When examining Amy Beach’s Piano Trio No. 1 I focused my study towards the shifts from stability to instability throughout the first movement. Upon my first listen through there were many moments that felt ‘unstable’ but I couldn’t, at the time, put into words exactly what was causing this ‘unstable’ feeling. This first thing that really pushed this ‘unstable’ feeling was the constant movement, the piece felt like it was constantly changing.

Image A

    This opening section of the piece sets the mood for the entire A section of the piece. The rolled chords in Image A keep the momentum flowing and moving ever forward. These rolled chords really push the instability of the A section with a flowing motion that leaves the listener unsure of the direction of the progression.

    Another factor to this constant forward motion is the constant chord changes, changing to something completely different every bar. (see image B)

Image B

    Looking at Image B, you can see that the chords change every bar; this consists of changing chords or adding different non-chord tones.

    This completely changes when you look at the B section where the chords become more blocked, there is a drastic drop in the use of non-chord tones, and the harmonic properties of the chords don’t change as frequently. 

Image C

    Here’s an example of the chords being more blocked with only a few moments in the B section that roll. The change from rolled to blocked chords and how the chords change at a much slower rate than in the A section show just how polar opposites these sections are to each other.

    Next I analyzed deeper into the harmonic structure. I first did a brief chord analysis from the A-B sections in order to look just at the tip of the iceberg. I found that in the rolled chords (Image A) many of the chords used multiple non-chord tones and some included polychords. 

Image A (edited)

    Referring back to Image A (edited) you can see how the ‘sounded’ chord (chord thats heard) is A minor but by adding non-chord tones like B, F, and D# Amy Beach creates a sense of unease and instability. These non-chord tones add texture to the chord that highlights the chord tones but is masked by the major/minor second non-chord tones. Amy Beach also uses Augmented chords to give the sense on instability.

Image D1 (edited) 

Image D2 (edited)

Image D3 (edited)

    In the 3 images above, I’ve circled a progression of (almost) all augmented chords. The red circles highlight the chord tones and the blue circles indicate the cello melody which I have decided to use to name what the root of the augmented chord progression is. The notes circled purple are purple because the chord can be heard as an augmented chord but doesn’t have the notes that make it augmented (Eb, Ab, C instead of E, Ab, C)

Image E

    In contrast to image D, looking at image E, the piano hovers around the 1 chord (Eb) giving an extreme sense of stability. Same even after the key change in image F. The chord progression is slower and the motion is slower giving much more stability.

Image F

    Now when you look towards the climax of the movement you can see that Amy Beach actually combines elements of the A phrase and the B phrase to create stability with the first melody.

(Image G)

    Looking at the image above you can see how Ay Beach uses blocked chords with the main A phrase melody. She also uses the same bass note for every first chord similarly to the B phrase before that 'sat' around the I chord (see image E). 

Form in Melodic Lines

    Now when you look at the form of the melodic lines there are many layers and many different ways to interpret the layers.

(Image H)

https://www.brianedwardjarvis.com/MusicTheoryWebApps/BriFormer/briformer_editor.html?activity_type=open_from_web_link_youtube&shared_briform_id=v_1_2/2025_5_3_21_59_11_w31nh

(Link to the full first movement BriFormer)

    When looking at Image H you can see on the bottom layer the smaller phrase ideas or Binary Ideas (B.I.). These ideas are continued and expanded on through the 'b' phrase of this section (We will look how the chromatic violin transition fits in soon). The second level shows the bigger 'a' and 'b' phrases (third layer is just what instrument is playing solo). And finally the fourth layer is the big overall phrase until the big cadence after the violins chromatic transition.

(Image I a)

(Image I b)

(Image I c)

(image I d)

    The line the purple is highlighting is the melody. These 4 images can be related to the B.I's in Image H. The first B.I can be seen in Image I a and b, the second B.I can be seen in Image I c and d. These two phrases mimic each other but are still underdeveloped until the next phrase (Images J a-c).

(Image J a)

(Image J b)

(Image J c)

    In Images J a-c you can see the 'continuation' or development of the 2 B.I phrases in Images I a-d. 

(Image I a)

(Image J a)

    When you compare Image I a and Image J a you can see how they both begin the same way but the difference lies when comparing wat comes after. In Image I b you can see that the phrase ends while in Image J b you can see the phrase continues into Image J c.

Image I Phrase^          (BI)

Image J Phrase    (Continuation)

    On a much larger scale you can see how this could actually be heard as one big phrase to the violin part, or is it going to the violin part.

    After looking deeper the melody actually continues from the end of the Image J c phrase into the violin 'chromatic transition.'

(Image K a)

(Image K b)

(Image K c)

    

    The three images above show the chromatic transition downwards and how it all fits together. The purple circles in the beginning highlight the relationship between the passing melodic lines between the instrument. In the cello part Amy Beach initially has the cello play the G# to F# twice showing the intentionality of the melody change when she give the violin the same G# to F# in the next bar. The violin then takes the line and moves in n almost step-wise motion down eventually passing to the piano (F to C) then the piano goes almost entirely chromatically down to the V chord for the perfect authentic cadence into the next phrase. With this knowledge it is possible to view the a and b phrase and the violins chromatic transition all as one big phrase leading the to cadence.

    Though this analysis was short and only covered mainly the beginning half of the first movement, you can see the intentionality Amy Beach uses in order to create a sense of Instability and Stability. You can see how Amy Beach uses form to connect musical ideas and create a 'fog' to hide or mask phrase lengths and how they work together. You can see how she uses elements of instability and of stability to really establish and contrast the forms in the Main A and B sections of the piece; similarly you can see how she uses techniques to make the form more and less obvious in order to add to the instability or stability of the piece throughout the first movement.