Amy Fay: The American Years

Abstract

When American pianist Amy Fay returned to United States in 1875 after six years of study in Germany, she already was a celebrity of sorts in cultivated circles. Her letters to her sister Melusina Peirce, in which she describes musical life in Germany and music study in particular, had appeared in Atlantic Monthly in 1874 and served to introduce her to a large public. Her colorful verbal portraits of such great musical masters as Tausig, Kullak, and Liszt and her vivacious accounts of German musical life proved both entertaining and instructive for her readers and won for her an enthusiastic following. When, through efforts of her sister and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Fay's letters finally were published in book form by Jansen and Maclurg in 1880 under title Music Study in Germany,1 her public widened. According to Fay genealogy,2 during author's lifetime it went through twenty-five editions in America. Ethelbert Nevin once remarked that it was the book of age.3 It stimulated many American students to make a serious study and profession of music. Frequently it was given as a prize for proficiency in girls' schools,4 and undoubtedly it proved an incentive for young musicians world over to study their chosen art in Germany.5 The popularity of book has endured to present, so much so, in fact, that it has tended to distract attention of public from other equally important accomplishments of its author. Musicians and amateurs alike know of Amy Fay principally as author of Music Study in Germany,6 while for most part they remain uninformed about her career at home. Yet it was in preparation for that career that Fay spent so many years studying music in Germany under direction of some of leading European pianists. Furthermore, toward end of her European sojourn, Fay eagerly anticipated her return to United States, so that she could test her musical