In Celebration of the Human Voice - The Essential Musical Instrument

Irving Fine

Born: 1914. Died: 1962. Lived in: United States

Irving Fine's music, wrote Aaron Copland, "wins us over through its keenly conceived sonorities and its fully realized expressive content"; Copland also singled out its "elegance, style, finish and a convincing continuity", its overarching lyricism summed up in Virgil Thomson's description of its "unusual melodic grace".

Irving Fine was born in Boston, Mass., on 3 December 1914 and first studied piano; he was an admired pianist throughout his career, and was particularly esteemed by colleagues for his sight-reading ability. Fine went to Harvard University, attending the composition and theory classes of Edward Burlingame Hill and Walter Piston; he received his BA in 1937 and his MA a year later; at Harvard he also studied choral conducting with Archibald T. Davidson and, at Tanglewood, orchestral conducting with Serge Koussevitzy. In 1938-39 he attended Nadia Boulanger's composition classes at Fontainebleau, outside Paris, and at Radcliffe College, Cambridge (Mass.).

Arrangements | Recordings

Recordings and DVDs

Dale Warland Singers : Reincarnations

Reincarnations is a program of five American masterworks and includes one world premier recording (Tom o'Bedlam). "The Hour Glass" by Irving Fine is difficult and virtuosic cycle, written in a lyrical style just before his 12-tone experimentation. "Tom o'Bedlam" by Jacob Avshlomov is based on a text about one of the patients of the insane asylum, St. Mary of Bethlehem, in 16th century. Accompanied by oboe and percussion, this powerful piece mimics the nonsense and madness in the text. "Reincarnations" by Samuel Barber is a set of three pieces which uses James Stephen's re-writing of old Gaelic poetry and includes the absolutely gorgeous setting of "The Coolin (The Fair Haired One)." All of the works on this recording are demanding but skillfully sung by the incomparable Dale Warland Singers.

Songlist: The Hour Glass, - O know to end as to begin, - Have you seen the white lily grow, - O do not wanton with those eyes, - Against Jealousy, - Lament, - The Hour-Glass, Tom o'Bedlam, Reincarnations, - When again all these rare perfections meet, - All-circling point, - His body was an orb, - On a round ball, - Nor do I doubt, - See how the arched Earth, Psalm 90 (Charles Ives)