Music-Study in Germany From The Home Correspondence of Amy Fay
Amy Fay
Hardcover
(A. C. McClurg & Company, )
Amy Fay was born May 21, 1844 in Bayou Goula, Louisiana. One of seven children, she was taught by her mother and older sisters (after her mother's death) music in the home. This was a standard practice for girls in America. Eventually her sister, Zina Fay Peirce, was able to use her Cambridge connections to help Amy get piano lessons with some of America's best teachers, first composer and pianist Otto Dressel, a Prussian immigrant and then John Knowles Paine, Harvard's first professor of music. After her piano skills surpassed her educational opportunities available in the States she did what most musicians (but few female musicians) did: went to study in Germany. Once Fay arrived in Germany she first sought to study in the conservatory of Carl Tausig, whom Paine had described to her as playing, "like forty thousand devils". She studied with Tausig for a year before he suddenly closed his school. Fay then moved on to study with Theodore Kullak for 3 years before moving on to her most famous teacher, Franz Liszt. She studied with Liszt for 5 months before Liszt left for Rome and she finished her time in Germany with Ludwig Deppe for a year and a half before returning home. All in all, Fay spent 6 years studying the piano in Germany. While Fay was abroad she wrote letters constantly to her sister, Zina. Zina saw potential in these letters and eventually had them compiled and published into what would be Fay's legacy, a book called Music-Study in Germany. In Fay's lifetime alone the book saw 25 printings and was translated into German and French with forewords by George Grove and Vincent d'Indy. The book was enthralling because in a colloquial style Fay proceeded to bring to life living conditions, fashion, musical culture and celebrities for the American public. Her character sketches of Franz Liszt are still an important resource for Liszt scholars today.