New Faces
Lazare Saminsky
Musical Courier, Feb 1, 1943
A brilliant musician is Vivian Fine. An agile
pianist, admirable coach, extraordinary reader at
sight of most difficult scores, this young
Chcagoan transplanted to New York is well and
favorably known to our musical world. Yet very
few people realize that this serene, amazingly
modest girl is a splendid composer, a creator of
music of fine substance and outstanding mastery.
Some years ago I first saw the works of Vivian
Fine. She was then a child of fifteen. I was
amazed by the power and precocity of her superb
musical brains capable of tackling the most
intricate harmonic concepts.
Her former radicalism à outrance and
cerebralism have now disappeared, leaving no
trace. In her Allegro Concertante for strings
[from Concertante for Piano and Orchestra) it is
a delight to follow the novel diatonic flow of
the charmingly gay piece with its firm
polyphonic-thematic backbone.
Even more impressive are her splendid
songs—the attractive Epigram, of a limpid
vocal line and imaginative instrumentation;
Bloom, for voice and string quartet, enchanting
in its human substance and parallel weaving;
luminous, lovely expressive vocal line and
counter-voices of the strings. Then there is
Dirge (after Shakespeare) for voice, viola, and
cello, a piece beautiful in its emotional depth
and a calm, clear-eyed masterly mirroring an
amazingly potent, fine intellect.
Think of the stoicism of this extraordinary
girl who has lived here for years without ever
hearing her admirable music played or seeing it
published!