Vivian Fine's 'Missa Brevis'

Synopsis

Over the centuries, a wide range of composers have created musical settings of the Latin mass, but one of the more unusual and distinctive settings received its premiere performance on today’s date in 1973 at a concert at Finch College in New York City devoted entirely to the music of American composer Vivian Fine.

At that time, Fine was teaching at Bennington College in Vermont, and her Missa Brevis, or Short Mass, was inspired by some of her colleagues there. Cellist George Finckel had organized cello quartet at the college, and for one semester as a sabbatical replacement, mezzo-soprano Jan DeGaetani, a noted new music advocate, taught at Bennington. She crafted her Missa Brevis from the taped voice of DeGaetani, multi-tracked into four channels as a kind of one-woman chorus, accompanied by Finckel’s quartet of cellos, whose combined low registers sound rather organ-like.

The blend of taped and live musicians created an effect both ancient and modern. In addition to the familiar Kyrie and Sanctus movements of the traditional mass, Fine interpolated sacred texts of her own choosing, making this Missa Brevis her own, intensely personal private spiritual testament.

Music Played in Today's Program

Vivian Fine (1913-2000): Missa Brevis; JanDeGaetani, mezzo-soprano; Eric Barlett, David Finckel, Michael Finckel, Maurice Neuman, cello; CRI 692

On This Day

Births

• 1688 - German composer Johann Friedrich Fasch, in Buttelstadt

Premieres

• 1738 - Handel: opera Serse (Xerxes), in London at the King’s Theater in the Haymarket (Gregorian date: April 26)

• 1739 - Handel: oratorio Israel in Egypt (Julian date: April 4)

• 1902 - Ravel: Pavane pour une Infante Défunte (Pavan for the Dead Princess, or perhaps more accurately: Pavan for a Princess of the Past), in Paris, by Ravel's friend Ricardo Viñes

• 1915 - de Falla: ballet El Amor Brujo (Love the Magician), in Madrid

• 1918 - Prokofiev: Piano Sonata No. 3 and Visions Fugitives, in Petrograd (St. Petersburg), by the composer

• 1926 - Douglas Moore: opera The Pageant of P.T. Barnum, by the Cleveland Orchestra, Nikolai Sokoloff conducting

• 1927 - Converse: orchestral fantasy Flivver Ten Million (celebrating the ten millionth Ford automobile produced), by the Boston Symphony, Serge Koussevitzky conducting

• 1931 - Copland: A Dance Symphony, by the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Leopold Stokowski. This work incorporates material from Copland’s 1923 ballet Grohg, which had not been produced. The symphony was one the winners of the 1929 Victor Talking Machine Company Competition Prize. The judges of the competition decided that none of the submitted works deserved the full $25,000 prize, so they awarded $5000 each to four composers, including Copland, Ernest Bloch, and Louis Gruenberg, and gave $10,000 to Robert Russell Bennett (who had submitted two works).

• 1976 - William Schuman: Concerto on Old English Rounds for viola, women's chorus and orchestra, in New York City

• 1979 - John Harbison: Quintet for Winds, at Jordan Hall in Boston, by the Aulos Quintet

• 1980 - Paul Creston: Piano Trio, in Grinnell, Iowa, by the Mirecourt Trio

• 1981 - Stanislaw Skrowaczewski: Clarinet Concerto, in Minneapolis, by soloist Joseph Longo and the Minnesota Orchestra, with the composer conducting

• 1989 - Andrew Lloyd Webber: musical Aspects of Love, in London. The musical premiered on Broadway on April 8, 1990.

• 1994 - Michael Torke: Bone for mixed ensemble, at the Rensselaer (New York) Polytechnical Institute, by the Dog of Desire ensemble, David Alan Miller conducting

• 1998 - Philip Glass: digital opera Monsters of Grace, at UCLA, by the Philip Glass Ensemble, Michael Riesman conducting, to computer animated images created by Robert Wilson

• 2000 - Steve Mackey: Tuck and Roll (Concerto for Electric Guitar and Orchestra), in Miami with the composer as soloist with the New World Symphony conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas

Others

• 1847 - American premiere of Verdi’s opera Ernani, at the Park Theatre in New York City

• 1971 - Igor Stravinsky’s funeral mass held at Santi Giovanni e Paolo in Venice. Stravinsky is buried on the island of San Michele.