Vivian Fine

Synopsis

Today we celebrate the birthday of American composer Vivian Fine, who was born in Chicago on this date in 1913.

Already, at the age of five, she was a scholarship piano student at the Chicago Musical College. As she grew up she became enthralled with the great composers and performers she heard at her regular visits to the Chicago Symphony. Vivian Fine initially intended to be a concert pianist, but theory studies with American composer Ruth Crawford Seeger inclined her more and more towards composition.

She also became an avid follower of the emerging “Ultra-Modern” school of composers, including Henry Cowell, who later proved to be one of her early mentors. Fine’s debut as a composer came in Chicago when she was 16, and at 17 she went to New York City, where she studied composition with Roger Sessions, and orchestration with George Szell.

Fine wrote this “Concertante for Piano and Orchestra” in 1944, initially without any specific commission or likelihood of performance. When her teacher Roger Sessions saw her sketches for this music, he commented: “Now we are colleagues.” For his part, George Szell, a musician notoriously hard to please, complimented her on its orchestration.

Teaching also became an important part of Fine's professional life, first at New York University and Juilliard, and ultimately at Bennington College. Vivian Fine died in March of 2000, at the age of 86, following a traffic accident in Vermont.

Music Played in Today's Program

Vivian Fine (1913 – 2000) Concertante Reiko Honsho, piano; Japan Philharmonic; Akeo Watanabe, cond. CRI 692

On This Day

Births

• 1870 - French composer Florent Schmitt, in Blámont;

• 1913 - American composer Vivian Fine, in Chicago;

Deaths

• 1825 - Russian composer Dimitri Bortniansky, age c. 74, in St. Petersburg (Gregorian date: Oct. 10);

• 1964 - English composer Sir George Dyson, age 81, in Winchester;

Premieres

• 1918 - Stravinsky: "The Soldier's Tale" for narrator and seven instruments, in Lausanne at the Théatre Municipal with Ernest Ansermet conducting;

• 1961 - Bartók: "Scherzo" for Piano and Orchestra, an early work by the late composer, in Budapest;

• 1972 - Petrassi: Concerto for Orchestra No. 8, in Chicago;

• 1997 - James MacMillan: Symphony ("Vigil"), at the Barbican in London, by the London Symphony, Mstislav Rostropovich conducting;

Others

• 1951 - Sci-fi classic "The Day the Earth Stood Still" opens in theaters across America, featuring memorable score by Bernard Herrmann that included eerie, other-worldly sounds imitating the electronic instrument known as a "Theremin" (after its Russian-born inventor, Leon Theremin); In the movie, actress Patricia Neal's rendition of the space alien command "Gort: Klaatu barada nikto" prevents Earth's destruction by a death-ray robot from outer space.

• 2007 - Conductor Philip Brunelle awarded the "Champion of New Music" Award by the American Composers Forum at their 2007 Annual Meeting in St. Paul, Minn.; This award recognizes artists who have commissioned and performed a significant number of new works by living composers.