See/Hear

The "Boston Six" (or "Boston School") referred to a tight-knit group of American composers who were most active during the middle decades of the 20th century. This diverse group included Leonard Bernstein, Arthur Berger, Lukas Foss, Harold Shapiro, Aaron Copland, and Irving Fine. Like many composers in Europe and America at the time, members of the Boston School made use of neoclassical methods to bring together a wide range of musical influences into a cohesive whole.

While neoclassicism began as a more diffuse trend during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it was Igor Stravinsky's works from the 1920's that became recognized as some of the earliest examples of the style, most notably his dry and witty Octet for Wind Instruments. Across the Atlantic, neoclassicism proved to be an apt tool for American composers as well. Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein created large-scale works by weaving elements of jazz and American folk music into compositions that emphasized formal, contrapuntal, and textural clarity. Many of these compositions continue to be some of the most performed works of American classical music to this day.

Other members of the Boston Six were also influenced by neoclassical trends, including Irving Fine. A notable example is his Partita ( 1948) which, while not as widely known as works of Copland and Bernstein, is a staple of the wind quintet repertoire. Set in five contrasting movements, the work makes use of carefully crafted counterpoint throughout, as Fine weaves together the diverse timbres of the five instruments to create a spacious yet rhythmically vital tapestry of sound. The movements titled Introduction and Theme, Variation, and Gigue are spritely and fast; at times, a certain angularity can be heard in the melodic and rhythmic contours. The harmony, while pleasant and sunny, has a certain bite just beneath the surface. Interlude and Coda, the second and final movements respectively, are more subdued but no less emotionally vivid. In spite of their formal titles, these movements are in some ways the most personal; a haunting quality pervades the air, and a strange somberness is present throughout.

On a personal note, I’d like to point out one aspect of Fine’s writing that I find to be a particularly powerful expressive tool: the use of "pandiatonic" harmony. Found in many works of Copland and Stravinsky, pandiatonicism refers to the free use of tones from the diatonic scale without the constraints of tonal harmony. Many neoclassical composers make use of this harmonic style to create complex and beautiful chords that often seem to hover in an ambiguous state between major and minor, triumphant and melancholic. Fine’s harmonic language in the Partita makes extensive use of pandiatonicism throughout, and I find it to be one of the more charming features of this subtle and captivating composition.

– James Shields