Experimentation is apparent in Solo for Oboe. At
the time Fine did not know an oboist, but liked the sound
and decided to write for it. The piece is in three
movements: Allegretto (quarter-note = 176), Lento
(quarter-note =72), and Con spirito (quarter-note = 176).
Although it is not inscribed on this piece (she would do
this later), the young composer was careful that an
accidental affect only the note it precedes, and she
added courtesy naturals to make her intentions clear. The
Solo for Oboe is a study in energy as created by
line and duration. For example, the line of movement one
is a mixture of consonant and dissonant intervals marked
by large leaps of a major seventh or minor ninth, which
create energy that is released through a change in
direction and narrower movement.
Although it would seem that
Fine was using motivic patterning or intervalic
control…these are not significant, and…Fine
stated: “I would not have been conscious of cells
or motifs at that time, I just wrote
intuitively.”…Fine recalled that she was not
interested in creating a compositional system or
procedure. Instead, these were the kinds of sounds and
durations that she was hearing in the modernistic works
she admired, and it was material that appealed to
her.
Fine composed Solo for
Oboe when she was sixteen years old, and what is
amazing are the varying phrase lengths, articulations,
durational variety, and sense of recapitulation. Imre
Weisshaus…thought so highly of the piece that he
arranged for it to be premiéred at a Pan-American
Association of Composers’ concert at the Chamber
Hall of Carnegie Hall in New York City.
–Heidi Von Gunden,
The Music of Vivian Fine, Scarecrow Press,
1999