Amy Beach and the Boundary Composers

Amy Beach was an American composer from New Hampshire who lived between 1867 and 1944. I think her Piano Concerto in C sharp minor is outstanding, and she is quickly becoming one of my favorite composers.

I noticed that many of my favorite composers fall on the boundaries between the different periods of classical music (examples of boundaries are Late Classical/Early Romantic and Late Romantic/Early Modern). Is this just a coincidence?

Well, perhaps not. Those who come at the end of a period achieve an unsurpassed level of refinement in style for that period while taking adventurous steps forward in anticipation of the next. Those who come at the beginning of a period define the spirit of that period while benefiting from the refinement of the one that came before. Incidentally, one thing all boundary composers have in common is that they can at times be difficult to classify by period.

We should appreciate Beethoven and Debussy as innovators and also Mozart and Rachmaninov, who each composed some of the greatest swan songs for periods of classical music.

Edit: I was overly enthusiastic in my estimation of Amy Beach's piano concerto. It is a fun piece of music, but after further listening I would not call it "outstanding."