# Amy Fay > Mediated Wiki article. Canonical URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Amy_Fay > Markdown URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Amy_Fay.md > Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Fay > Source revision: 1350374539 > License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) {{Short description|American concert pianist (1844–1928)}} {{Infobox musical artist | image = AMY KAY.jpg | caption = Amy Fay, circa 1897 | name = Amy Fay | birth_date = {{birth date |1844|05|21}} | birth_place = [Bayou Goula](/source/Bayou_Goula), [Louisiana](/source/Louisiana), [United States](/source/United_States) | death_date = {{death date and age |1928|11|09|1844|05|21}} | death_place = | occupation = Pianist | instrument = | genre = }} '''Amelia Muller Fay''' (May 21, 1844 – November 9, 1928) was an American concert [pianist](/source/pianist), manager of the New York [Women's Philharmonic Society](/source/Women's_Philharmonic_Society), and [chronicler](/source/chronicler) best known for her memoirs of the European classical music scene.{{Cite journal|last=McCarthy|first=Margaret William|year=2007–2017|title=Fay, Amy|journal=Grove Music Online|via=oxfordmusiconline}} A pupil of [Theodor Kullak](/source/Theodor_Kullak), Fay traveled to Europe to study with [Franz Liszt](/source/Franz_Liszt). Her letters home from Germany, including descriptions of her training and the concerts she attended, were published in 1880 as ''Music Study in Germany.''{{Cite book|title=Women in Music: An Anthology of Source Readings from the Middle Ages to the Present.|publisher=Northeastern University Press|year=1996|isbn=1-55553-240-3|editor-last=Neuls-Bates|editor-first=Carol|edition=Revised|location=Boston|pages=[https://archive.org/details/womeninmusicanth0000neul/page/109 109]|url=https://archive.org/details/womeninmusicanth0000neul/page/109}} These memoirs include a comprehensive biographical sketch of Liszt. Fay was born in 1844 in [Bayou Goula, Louisiana](/source/White_Castle%2C_Louisiana). She was the third of six daughters and the fifth of nine children of the Rev. Charles Fay and Emily (Hopkins) Fay of Louisiana and [St. Albans, Vermont](/source/St._Albans_(town)%2C_Vermont). She was [Charles Jerome Hopkins](/source/Charles_Jerome_Hopkins)'s niece. Her sister Rose Emily Fay married the conductor [Theodore Thomas](/source/Theodore_Thomas_(conductor)), and her sister [Melusina Fay Peirce](/source/Melusina_Fay_Peirce) was the wife of the American philosopher [Charles Sanders Peirce](/source/Charles_Sanders_Peirce). Amy Fay studied piano under Professor [John Knowles Paine](/source/John_Knowles_Paine) of Harvard and at the [New England Conservatory of Music](/source/New_England_Conservatory_of_Music). From 1869 to 1875, she continued her lessons in Germany. She had made it her goal to become a pupil of Carl Tausig who had just opened a piano class in Berlin. She was allowed to join the class, where she met Vera Timanov, a fellow student who would become a famous pianist in Russia. She also received lessons from [Theodor Kullak](/source/Theodor_Kullak) whose instructions were not to her satisfaction. A few months later she managed to gain access to [Franz Liszt](/source/Franz_Liszt)'s piano lessons in Weimar. Liszt was impressed by her playing and liked to talk to her. He regaled her with a little anecdote about himself and [Chopin](/source/Fr%C3%A9d%C3%A9ric_Chopin), in which Chopin dressed up as Liszt to play a trick on a friend of Liszt's. Stories like these she happily related back home to America via a stream of letters, which got published in [Dwight's Journal](/source/Dwight's_Journal_of_Music), as publication from Boston dedicated to musical matters. These letters were later on the foundation of her book "Music Study in Germany" that is to this day one of the best sources on German music teaching and the music scene around 1870. In it she describes how German troops were celebrated after their victory in the German-French war of 1870-1, what Germans ate, how they lived and what they thought about women's role in society. The central parts are reserved to her observations on how she met and what she thought about [Clara Schumann](/source/Clara_Schumann), [Marie Wieck](/source/Marie_Wieck), [Friedrich Wieck](/source/Friedrich_Wieck), [Carl Tausig](/source/Karl_Tausig), [Hans von Bülow](/source/Hans_von_B%C3%BClow), [Joseph Joachim](/source/Joseph_Joachim), [August Wilhelmj](/source/August_Wilhelmj), [Anna Mehlig](/source/Anna_Mehlig) and most of all - [Franz Liszt](/source/Franz_Liszt).{{Cite book |last=Fay |first=Amy |title=Music-Study in Germany. From the Home Correspondence of Amy Fay |date=1880 |publisher=Macmillan |year=1880}} Her last German piano teacher was [Ludwig Deppe](/source/Ludwig_Deppe), about whom she had heard a lot and whose technique intrigued her. She got a chance to meet him at a dinner party given in honor of [Anna Mehlig](/source/Anna_Mehlig) by an American businessman in Berlin. Deppe's technique for piano revolutionized her playing and served as the method she herself was to use for her students in the years to come. {{See LMST|Amy|Fay}} On returning to Boston, Fay became well known for her "piano conversations": recitals preceded by short lectures. She moved to Chicago and New York, where she was associated with the Women's Philharmonic Society of New York. She died on November 9, 1928. ==Bibliography== *''Music Study in Germany'' by Amy Fay, 1880; originally published by [Jansen, McClurg & Company](/source/w%3AA._C._McClurg); reprinted by Watson Press, 2007. Edited by her sisterBrown, John Howard. ''Lamb's Biographical Dictionary of the United States''. Boston: James H. Lamb Company, 1900. California Digital Library. Web. 14 May 2013. Pg. 200. [Melusina Fay Peirce](/source/Melusina_Fay_Peirce). *''The Deppe Finger Exercises for Rapidly Developing an Artistic Touch in Piano Forte Playing (carefully arranged, classified and explained by Amy Fay)'', Chicago, 1890, Straub & Co. ==References== {{Reflist}} == Secondary literature == Caland Elisabeth: ''Artistic Piano Playing as Taught by Ludwig Deppe'' (1901 Nashville, Reprint {{ISBN|9780344157028}} Gerig, Reginald: ''Famous Pianists and Their Technique'' (Washington 1976) {{ISBN|0-88331-066-X}} Ydefeldt, Stefan, ''Die einfache runde Bewegung am Klavier: Bewegungsphilosophien um 1900 und ihre Auswirkungen auf die heutige'' Klaviermethodik, (2018) Augsburg: Wissner Verlag orig. Schwedisch, {{ISBN|978-3-95786-136-8}} ==External links== * {{Gutenberg author | id=38771| name=Amy Fay}} * {{Internet Archive author |sname=Amy Fay |birth=1844 |death=1928}} *"[http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Amy+Fay%3A+America%27s+Notable+Woman+of+Music.-a019129585 Amy Fay: America's Notable Woman of Music]", ''TheFreeLibrary.com''. *"[https://americanmusicalwoman.wordpress.com/2011/05/02/amy-fay/ Amy Fay]", ''AmericanMusicalWoman.WordPress.com''. {{authority control}} {{DEFAULTSORT:Fay, Amy}} Category:1844 births Category:1928 deaths Category:Chroniclers Category:Pupils of Franz Liszt Category:American women classical pianists Category:19th-century American classical pianists Category:19th-century American women pianists Category:People from White Castle, Louisiana Category:19th-century American women musicians {{US-pianist-stub}} --- Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Amy Fay](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Fay) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Fay?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.