Irving Gifford Fine (December 3, 1914 – August 23, 1962) was an American composer. Fine's work assimilated neoclassical,

romantic Romantic may refer to: Genres and eras * The Romantic era, an artistic, literary, musical and intellectual movement of the 18th and 19th centuries ** Romantic music, of that era ** Romantic poetry, of that era ** Romanticism in science, of that e ...

, and serial elements. Composer

Virgil Thomson Virgil Thomson (November 25, 1896 – September 30, 1989) was an American composer and critic. He was instrumental in the development of the "American Sound" in classical music. He has been described as a modernist, a neoromantic, a neoclassi ...

described Fine's "unusual melodic grace" while

Aaron Copland Aaron Copland (, ; November 14, 1900December 2, 1990) was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later a conductor of his own and other American music. Copland was referred to by his peers and critics as "the Dean of American Com ...

noted the "elegance, style, finish and...convincing continuity" of Fine's music. Fine was a member of a close-knit group of

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the capital city, state capital and List of municipalities in Massachusetts, most populous city of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financ ...

composers in the mid-20th century who were sometimes called the " Boston School." Other members of the Boston School included Arthur Berger,

Leonard Bernstein Leonard Bernstein ( ; August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, pianist, music educator, author, and humanitarian. Considered to be one of the most important conductors of his time, he was the first America ...

Lukas Foss Lukas Foss (August 15, 1922 – February 1, 2009) was a German-American composer, pianist, and conductor. Career Born Lukas Fuchs in Berlin, Germany in 1922, Foss was soon recognized as a child prodigy. He began piano and theory lessons with Ju ...

, and

Harold Shapero Harold Samuel Shapero (April 29, 1920 – May 17, 2013) was an American composer. Early years Shapero was born in Lynn, Massachusetts, on April 29, 1920. He and his family later moved to nearby Newton. He learned to play the piano as a chi ...

Life

Fine was born in Boston, Massachusetts, where he studied piano, and received both bachelor's and master's degrees from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

, where he was a pupil of

Walter Piston Walter Hamor Piston, Jr. (January 20, 1894 – November 12, 1976), was an American composer of classical music, music theorist, and professor of music at Harvard University. Life Piston was born in Rockland, Maine at 15 Ocean Street to Walter ...

. Fine was a conducting pupil of

Serge Koussevitzky Sergei Alexandrovich KoussevitzkyKoussevitzky's original Russian forename is usually transliterated into English as either "Sergei" or "Sergey"; however, he himself adopted the French spelling " Serge", using it in his signature. (SeThe Koussevi ...

, served as pianist for the

Boston Symphony Orchestra The Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) is an American orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the second-oldest of the five major American symphony orchestras commonly referred to as the " Big Five". Founded by Henry Lee Higginson in 1 ...

, and studied composition with

Nadia Boulanger Juliette Nadia Boulanger (; 16 September 188722 October 1979) was a French music teacher and conductor. She taught many of the leading composers and musicians of the 20th century, and also performed occasionally as a pianist and organist. From a ...

at the

Fontainebleau Fontainebleau (; ) is a commune in the metropolitan area of Paris, France. It is located south-southeast of the centre of Paris. Fontainebleau is a sub-prefecture of the Seine-et-Marne department, and it is the seat of the ''arrondissement ...

School of Music in Paris and at

Radcliffe College Radcliffe College was a women's liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and functioned as the female coordinate institution for the all-male Harvard College. Considered founded in 1879, it was one of the Seven Sisters colleges and he ...

. From 1939 until 1950, he taught music theory at Harvard and conducted its

Glee Club A glee club in the United States is a musical group or choir group, historically of male voices but also of female or mixed voices, which traditionally specializes in the singing of short songs by trios or quartets. In the late 19th century it w ...

, becoming a close associate of

Igor Stravinsky Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (6 April 1971) was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor, later of French (from 1934) and American (from 1945) citizenship. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential composers of the ...

and

. From 1950, he taught at

Brandeis University Brandeis University is a Private university, private research university in Waltham, Massachusetts. Founded in 1948 as a nonsectarian, non-sectarian, coeducational institution sponsored by the Jews, Jewish community, Brandeis was established on t ...

, where he was Walter S. Naumburg Professor of Music and founded the School of Creative Arts. Between 1946 and 1957, he also taught composition at the

Tanglewood Music Festival The Tanglewood Music Festival is a music festival held every summer on the Tanglewood estate in Stockbridge and Lenox in the Berkshire Hills in western Massachusetts. The festival consists of a series of concerts, including symphonic music, ch ...

in the

Berkshires The Berkshires () are a highland geologic region located in the western parts of Massachusetts and northwest Connecticut. The term "Berkshires" is normally used by locals in reference to the portion of the Vermont-based Green Mountains that ex ...

. Irving Fine died in

Natick, Massachusetts Natick ( ) is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is near the center of the MetroWest region of Massachusetts, with a population of 37,006 at the 2020 census. west of Boston, Natick is part of the Greater Boston area. ...

in August 1962. He was 47 years of age. The cause of death was heart disease.

Educational legacy

Notable composition students of Irving Fine include Gustav Ciamaga, Noël Lee,

Ann Loomis Silsbee Ann Loomis Silsbee (21 July 1930 - 28 August 2003) was an American composer and poet who composed two operas, published three books of poetry, and received several awards, commissions, and fellowships. Silsbee was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. ...

Halim El-Dabh Halim Abdul Messieh El-Dabh ( ar, حليم عبد المسيح الضبع, ''Ḥalīm ʻAbd al-Masīḥ al-Ḍab''ʻ; March 4, 1921 – September 2, 2017) was an Egyptian-American composer, musician, ethnomusicologist, and educator, who had ...

, and Richard Wernick. Towards the end of his life, Fine notably collaborated with Wernick on the musical ''Maggie'', a work based on the

Stephen Crane Stephen Crane (November 1, 1871 – June 5, 1900) was an American poet, novelist, and short story writer. Prolific throughout his short life, he wrote notable works in the Realist tradition as well as early examples of American Naturalism an ...

novel of the same name. A Professorship of Music at Brandeis University is named in Fine's honor. The composer Arthur Berger served as Irving G. Fine Professor of Music from 1969 to 1980 (and as Emeritus Professor until his death in 2003). The current Irving G. Fine Professor of Music is

Eric Chasalow Eric David Chasalow (born 1955) is an American composer of acoustic and electronic music. He is Graduate Dean at Brandeis University, and Director of BEAMS, the Brandeis Electro-Acoustic Music Studio. Biography He was born in Newark, New Jersey o ...

. Brandeis University is also home to the Irving Fine Society, founded in 2006 by music director Nicholas Alexander Brown. The society comprises the Irving Fine Singers and the Gifford 5, a woodwind quintet. The society "acts as a producing organization for concerts, educational programs and scholarly activities related to the legacy of composer Irving Gifford Fine and the global impact of American culture in the twentieth century."

Works

Orchestra

* ''Toccata concertante'', 1947 * ''Serious Song: A Lament'', strings, 1955 * ''Blue Towers'', 1959 * ''Diversions'', 1959–60 * Symphony, 1962

Chorus

* ''Three Choruses from Alice in Wonderland'', 3–4 voices, piano, 1942; arrangement with orchestra, 1949 * ''The Choral New Yorker'', S, A, Bar, 3–4 voices, piano, 1944 * ''A Short Alleluia'', SSA, 1945 * ''In gratio jubilo'', hymn, small orchestra, 1949 * ''The Hour-Glass'' (B. Jonson), song cycle, SATB, 1949 * ''Old American Songs'' (trad.), 2–4 voices, piano, 1952 * ''An Old Song'' (Yehoash, trans. M. Syrkin), SATB, 1953 * ''Three Choruses from Alice in Wonderland'' (L. Carroll), 2nd ser., SSA, piano, 1953 * ''McCord's Menagerie'' (McCord), TTB, 1957

Songs

* ''Mutability'' (I. Orgel), cycle, Mez, piano, 1952 * ''Childhood Fables for Grown-ups'' (G. Norman), Mez/Bar, piano/orchestra, 1954–5

Chamber and solo instrument

* Sonata, violin, piano, 1946 * ''Music for Piano'', 1947 * Partita, wind quintet, 1948 * Notturno, strings, harp, 1950–51 * String Quartet, 1952 * ''Children's Piano Pieces'', 1956 * Fantasia, string trio, 1956 * ''Hommage à Mozart'', piano, 1956 * Romanza, wind quintet, 1958

Reading

A biography, ''Irving Fine: An American Composer in His Time'', by author, composer, and pianist Phillip Ramey, was published in 2005 by the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The librar ...

and Pendragon Press, and received the 2006 Nicolas Slonimsky Award for Outstanding Musical Biography from

ASCAP The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) () is an American not-for-profit performance-rights organization (PRO) that collectively licenses the public performance rights of its members' musical works to venues, broadca ...

References

* Anderson, E. Ruth. ''Contemporary American Composers. A Biographical Dictionary'', 2nd edition. G. K. Hall, 1982. * Butterworth, Neil. ''A Dictionary of American Composers''. Garland, 1984. * Pollack, Howard Joel. ''Harvard Composers: Walter Piston and His Students, from Elliott Carter to Frederic Rzewski''. Scarecrow Press, 1992. * Press, Jaques Cattell (Ed.). ''ASCAP Biographical Dictionary of Composers, Authors and Publishers'', 4th edition. R. R. Bowker, 1980. * Sadie, Stanley; Hitchcock, H. Wiley (Ed.). ''The New Grove Dictionary of American Music''. Grove's Dictionaries of Music, 1986. * Villamil, Victoria Etnier; Hampson, Thomas. ''A Singer's Guide to the American Art Song 1870–1980'', foreword by Thomas Hampson. Scarecrow Press, 1993.

External links

The Irving Fine Collection at the Library of CongressIrving Fine Collection
at th
Library of Congress

Boosey & Hawkes biography

"A Fine Centennial" by Ethan Iverson
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fine, Irving 1914 births 1962 deaths 20th-century classical composers 20th-century American composers Twelve-tone and serial composers American classical composers American male classical composers Jewish American classical composers Brandeis University faculty Harvard University alumni Musicians from Boston Pupils of Walter Piston 20th-century American male musicians Nonesuch Records artists