Announcement of Irving Fine Collection on American Memory

[danna bell-russel]

Good afternoon

This announcement is being sent to a number of lists. Please accept our
apologies for any duplicate postings. 

Irving Fine Collection Now available on American Memory.

The work of Irving Fine, composer, conductor, writer and academic is now
represented online as part of the American Memory online collections.
This first release of materials coincides with the Music Division's
concert tribute to Fine scheduled this evening at the Coolidge
Auditorium of the Library of Congress. The Irving Fine collection can be
found at the following url: <http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ifhtml/>

Called a "remarkable American composer" by noted music lexicographer
Nicolas Slonimsky, Irving Fine (1914-1962) was included in the so-called
"American Stravinsky School"' by fellow composer and longtime friend
Aaron Copland (1900-1990).  Fine, whose compositional output was
influenced by the music of Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) and Paul
Hindemith (1895-1963), died prematurely in 1962, thereby cutting short
one of the most promising careers in twentieth-century American
classical music.

Fine's early, neoclassic works include his Music for Piano (1947) and
Partita for Wind Quintet (1948).  His later romantic style is
represented by the orchestral works Notturno (1951) and Serious Song
(1955), both often programmed by orchestras to this day. The most
frequently performed of his choral works are Alice in Wonderland (1942),
The Hour Glass (1949), and The Choral New Yorker (1944).   With the
completion of his String Quartet in 1952, it appears that Fine was able
to combine his earlier tonal approach to music writing with the then new
technique of "serialism," or twelve-tone technique.

Fine taught music theory and history at Harvard University from 1939 to
1950 and music theory and composition at Brandeis University from 1950
to 1962.  He also taught composition at the Berkshire Music Festival at
Tanglewood from 1946 to 1957.

This first online release of The Irving Fine Collection includes a
selection of 57 photographs of Irving Fine (many of them with other
notable musicians at Tanglewood and elsewhere). A special presentation
consists of manuscript sketches and the score for the String Quartet,
along with a recorded performance of this work by the Juilliard String
Quartet.  In addition, the site includes a timeline of the composer's
life as well as the finding aid for the complete collection.

Irving Fine's career is documented in the Library of Congress Music
Division by approximately 4,350 items from the Irving Fine
Collection.  These materials were collected by the composer's widow,
Verna Fine, who maintained a long relationship with the Music Division
of the Library of Congress to which she donated the materials in stages
just before and after the composer's death.  She tirelessly devoted
herself to promoting her husband's music until her own death in 2000.

The collection contains manuscript and printed music, sketchbooks,
writings, and personal and business correspondence from such
twentieth-century musical luminaries as Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990),
Aaron Copland, Lukas Foss (b. 1922), Alberto Ginastera (1916-1983), Ned
Rorem (b. 1923), and William Schuman (1910-1992).  The archival
collection also contains scrapbooks, programs, clippings, and sound
recordings.

Please direct any questions to ndlpcoll at loc.gov