Ross Lee Finney
Encyclopedia
Ross Lee Finney Junior was an American
composer born in Wells, Minnesota
who taught for many years at the University of Michigan
. He studied with Nadia Boulanger
, Edward Burlingame Hill
, Alban Berg
(from 1931-2) and Roger Sessions
(in 1935).
His students included Leslie Bassett
, George Crumb
, Burton Beerman, Roger Reynolds
, William Albright
, Donald Bohlen, Robert Ashley
, Robert Morris
, Richard Toensing
, Stephen Chatman
, Rolv Yttrehus
, Robert Cogan
, George Balch Wilson
, Philip Krumm
, and Donald Harris
.
According to the notes for the Composers Recordings, Inc.
recording of Finney's second cello sonata
(about 1953), Chromatic Fantasy In E for Violoncello Solo (1957) and second piano trio
(1954), he received the Rome Prize
in 1960 and the Brandeis Medal
in 1968. He is quoted in those notes as having begun writing serial
music from time to time beginning with his sixth string quartet (a work which uses serial principles but is "in E" on the score), his next work to be composed after the sonata.
He wrote eight string quartet
s, four symphonies
as well as other orchestral works, other chamber works and songs.
Finney died on February 4, 1997, at his home in Carmel, California. He was 90.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
composer born in Wells, Minnesota
Wells, Minnesota
As of the census of 2000, there were 2,494 people, 1,032 households, and 665 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,846.5 people per square mile . There were 1,097 housing units at an average density of 812.2 per square mile...
who taught for many years at the University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
. He studied with Nadia Boulanger
Nadia Boulanger
Nadia Boulanger was a French composer, conductor and teacher who taught many composers and performers of the 20th century.From a musical family, she achieved early honours as a student at the Paris Conservatoire, but believing that her talent as a composer was inferior to that of her younger...
, Edward Burlingame Hill
Edward Burlingame Hill
Edward Burlingame Hill was an American composer.After graduating from Harvard University in 1894, Hill studied music in Boston with John Knowles Paine, Frederick Field Bullard, Margaret Ruthven Lang, and George Elbridge Whiting, and in Paris with Charles Marie Widor...
, Alban Berg
Alban Berg
Alban Maria Johannes Berg was an Austrian composer. He was a member of the Second Viennese School with Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern, and produced compositions that combined Mahlerian Romanticism with a personal adaptation of Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique.-Early life:Berg was born in...
(from 1931-2) and Roger Sessions
Roger Sessions
Roger Huntington Sessions was an American composer, critic, and teacher of music.-Life:Sessions was born in Brooklyn, New York, to a family that could trace its roots back to the American revolution. His mother, Ruth Huntington Sessions, was a direct descendent of Samuel Huntington, a signer of...
(in 1935).
His students included Leslie Bassett
Leslie Bassett
Leslie Bassett is an American composer of classical music, and the University of Michigan’s Albert A. Stanley Distinguished University Professor Emeritus of Composition...
, George Crumb
George Crumb
George Crumb is an American composer of contemporary classical music. He is noted as an explorer of unusual timbres, alternative forms of notation, and extended instrumental and vocal techniques. Examples include seagull effect for the cello , metallic vibrato for the piano George Crumb (born...
, Burton Beerman, Roger Reynolds
Roger Reynolds
Roger Reynolds is an American composer born July 18, 1934 in Detroit, Michigan. He is a professor at the University of California at San Diego. He received an undergraduate degree in engineering physics from the University of Michigan where he later studied composition with Ross Lee Finney...
, William Albright
William Albright (musician)
William Albright was an American composer, pianist and organist.Albright was born in Gary, Indiana, and began learning the piano at the age of five, and attended the Juilliard Preparatory Department , the Eastman School of Music and the University of Michigan , where he studied composition with...
, Donald Bohlen, Robert Ashley
Robert Ashley
Robert Ashley , is a contemporary American composer, best known for his operas and other theatrical works, many of which incorporate electronics and extended techniques. Along with Gordon Mumma, Ashley was also a major pioneer of audio synthesis.Ashley was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan...
, Robert Morris
Robert Morris (composer)
Robert Morris is an American composer and music theorist.-Work in music theory:As a music theorist, Morris' work has bridged an important gap between the rigorously academic and the highly experimental. Born in Cheltenham, England in 1943, Morris received his musical education at the Eastman...
, Richard Toensing
Richard Toensing
Richard Toensing is an American composer and music educator. He studied composition at St. Olaf College and the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where he earned the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in 1967...
, Stephen Chatman
Stephen Chatman
Stephen Chatman is an American composer residing in Canada.-Biography:Chatman was born in Faribault, Minnesota, and studied with Joseph R. Wood and Walter Aschaffenburg at the Oberlin Conservatory and with Ross Lee Finney, Leslie Bassett, William Bolcom, and Eugene Kurtz at the University of...
, Rolv Yttrehus
Rolv Yttrehus
Rolv Berger Yttrehus is an American composer of contemporary classical music.He holds degrees from the University of Minnesota and University of Michigan and a Diploma from the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome. He studied harmony with Nadia Boulanger and composition with Ross Lee Finney, Roger...
, Robert Cogan
Robert Cogan
Robert Cogan is an American music theorist, composer and teacher, who seeks to challenge new domains of musical composition and theory....
, George Balch Wilson
George Balch Wilson
George Balch Wilson is an American composer who is particularly known for his contributions to electronic music. In 1955 he won the Prix de Rome for composition. He taught for more than 30 years on the faculty of the University of Michigan where he notably founded and directed the school's...
, Philip Krumm
Philip Krumm
Philip Krumm is an American composer who was "a pioneer of modal, repetitive pattern music". Krumm studied orchestration and composition with Raymond Moses in high school, with Frank Sturchio at Saint Mary's University, with Ross Lee Finney at University of Michigan, and with Karlheinz Stockhausen...
, and Donald Harris
Donald Harris
Donald Harris is a former Major League Baseball player. He attended Texas Tech University.-Career:He was a first round draft pick by the Texas Rangers in the 1989 Amateur Draft. He played in the Major Leagues from 1991–1993 for the Rangers, primarily as an outfielder...
.
According to the notes for the Composers Recordings, Inc.
Composers Recordings, Inc.
Composers Recordings, Inc. was an American record label dedicated to the recording of contemporary classical music by American composers. It was founded in 1954 by Otto Luening, Douglas Moore, and Oliver Daniel, and based in New York City....
recording of Finney's second cello sonata
Cello sonata
A cello sonata is usually a sonata written for cello and piano, though other instrumentations are used, such as solo cello. The most famous Romantic-era cellos sonatas are those written by Johannes Brahms and Ludwig van Beethoven...
(about 1953), Chromatic Fantasy In E for Violoncello Solo (1957) and second piano trio
Piano trio
A piano trio is a group of piano and two other instruments, usually a violin and a cello, or a piece of music written for such a group. It is one of the most common forms found in classical chamber music...
(1954), he received the Rome Prize
Rome Prize
The Rome Prize is an American award made annually by the American Academy in Rome, through a national competition, to 15 emerging artists and to 15 scholars The Rome Prize is an American award made annually by the American Academy in Rome, through a national competition, to 15 emerging artists...
in 1960 and the Brandeis Medal
Brandeis Medal
The Brandeis Medal is awarded to individuals whose lives reflect United States Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis' commitment to the ideals of individual liberty, concern for the disadvantaged and public service....
in 1968. He is quoted in those notes as having begun writing serial
Serialism
In music, serialism is a method or technique of composition that uses a series of values to manipulate different musical elements. Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, though his contemporaries were also working to establish serialism as one example of...
music from time to time beginning with his sixth string quartet (a work which uses serial principles but is "in E" on the score), his next work to be composed after the sonata.
He wrote eight string quartet
String quartet
A string quartet is a musical ensemble of four string players – usually two violin players, a violist and a cellist – or a piece written to be performed by such a group...
s, four symphonies
Symphony
A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, scored almost always for orchestra. A symphony usually contains at least one movement or episode composed according to the sonata principle...
as well as other orchestral works, other chamber works and songs.
Finney died on February 4, 1997, at his home in Carmel, California. He was 90.
Selected worklist
- Concertos
- For violin and orchestra (1933, revised 1947)
- For saxophone and orchestra (1976)
- Two Piano concertos (one in 1949)
- Concerto for percussion and orchestra (about 1965)
- Orchestral works
- Spaces
- Four symphonies (1 "Communiqué 1943",2, 3, 4)
- Chamber music
- Eight string quartets
- Three violin sonatas (1934 in C minor, ?, 1957)
- Two cello sonatas (no. 1 from 1941, number two in C published around 1953)
- Six piano sonatas
- Sonatas for viola (at least two, no. 1 published around 1937, no. 2 around 1971)
- Piano trio in E minor (about 1930)
- Piano quartet (1948)
- 2 Piano quintets (second written 1961)
- String quintet (published 1966)
- Quartet for oboe, violoncello, percussion and piano (1979)
- Song cycles
- "Chamber music", to words by James JoyceJames JoyceJames Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...
- "Poor Richard," to words by Benjamin FranklinBenjamin FranklinDr. Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat...
- "Chamber music", to words by James Joyce
- Other
- "Spherical Madrigals" (1947)
Sources
- University of Michigan Record Obituary in the Music Division of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts (includes guide to correspondence with Eugene OrmandyEugene OrmandyEugene Ormandy was a Hungarian-born conductor and violinist.-Early life:Born Jenő Blau in Budapest, Hungary, Ormandy began studying violin at the Royal National Hungarian Academy of Music at the age of five...
regarding premieres of symphonies 2 and 3, etc.) Contains information not found in the above PDF finding aid. - Notes to a 1976 and 1981 recording of works by William Bolcom and Ross Lee Finney (available as a Google Cache)
- Kozinn, AllanAllan Kozinn-Biography:He received bachelor's degrees in music and journalism from Syracuse University in 1976. He began freelancing as a critic and music feature writer for the New York Times in 1977, and joined the paper's staff in 1991...
. "Ross Finney, 90, Composer Of the Modern and Lyrical" New York Times (February 7, 1997) http://www.nytimes.com/1997/02/07/arts/ross-finney-90-composer-of-the-modern-and-lyrical.html
Further reading
- White, John Norman. The solo piano music of Ross Lee Finney : a study of the role of the editor based on the unpublished written correspondence between Finney and John Kirkpatrick, with a detailed examination of the fourth piano sonata. Jacksonville State University. Dissertation. 1974.
External Links
- Ross Lee Finney Papers, 1916-1996 Music Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.