My father was a puzzle to me when I was a child. He wasn’t at all like other fathers. I don’t remember him ever hugging me or ever telling me that he loved me. I do remember him singing “I want to hold your hand” when we would cross the street. He sang snippets of pieces of music occasionally, and made parody patter songs, which he sometimes sang for us at dinner, but otherwise I don’t remember him singing. But I do remember him practicing.
The greatest memories of my childhood were hearing him practice in the basement. What I remember most are solo Bach (Cello Suites and Sonatas and Partitas), Reger, Brahms (G major Violin Sonata on Viola), Franck (Violin Sonata), and Paganini Caprices. When he practiced he expressed love very freely. Love for the musical line (in any piece of music) is as real as any love from (or to) a human being to me. My mother, who met my father in 1950, married him in the early 1950s, and divorced him in the 1970s, expressed her love through her painting. She always did art, but became serious about it when she could no longer play the flute. My father didn’t think much of her artwork.
I know very little about either of my parents. Both were puzzles. Their first child, my brother Marshall, was not neurotypical. He, like my father, had a tremendous intellect, but neither of our parents, like most new parents in the 1950s, understood much about parenting. They did bring Marshall to Dr. Spock in Cleveland (my father’s first job was at the Cleveland-based government agency that was to become NASA), but anything regarding the autism spectrum, where Marshall self-identified as an adult, was unknown in the 1950s.
I came out neurotypical in 1959, and my younger brother Richard, born in 1961, came out really gifted in math and things related to the world of computers, where he has been working since he graduated from college. Marshall and I were compelled as teenagers and as adults to express ourselves musically by playing and writing music. Richard is happy as a choral singer and as an avid listener. Joshua, my half brother, who grew up in the 1980s is, like Marshall, not neurotypical, and he benefited (eventually) from an environment of understanding about the autism spectrum that has allowed him to thrive as a choral singer and as a responsibly employed person.
When Marshall, Richard, and I were children, our father did all the driving in the family. He did all the shopping and all the outings. Perhaps it was to take us off our mother’s hands for a while. I remember being almost five and going in a rowboat on Jamaica Pond in West Roxbury. It was shortly after my father joined the Boston Symphony as a violinist. The story goes that he saw an ad in International Musician one day, took the next day off to practice, flew to Boston, and won the audition. My mother didn’t think he would get the job, but she reluctantly left Cleveland when he did.
I didn’t know until much later that my father didn’t know how to swim when he took us boating. I do remember wearing (and enjoying wearing) life jackets, though. He also took us to the Boston Children’s Museum when it was in its infancy, and took us ice skating at Cleveland Circle. He immediately broke his ankle and had to drive to the hospital in incredible pain. (If I used the word "incredible" when describing something, he would snap at me. "It's very credible," he would say).
We used to go bowling too. And there was a time when we would try to play tennis.
My father taught Marshall to play the violin, and I remember that going bowling was used as a reward for his paying attention. Marshall did not like lessons with my father, who might not have liked to teach him either. But he learned from his father, Nathan Fine, who was, according to my father, as good as anyone in the Philadelphia Orchestra. Like proper Bostonians, we only played candlepins. Our mother never came to the bowling alley.
At seven I was big enough to play the half-size violin that we had. My father gave me an “A Tune A Day” book, and let me teach myself. Perhaps he didn’t want to mess things up for me like he had for Marshall. Richard had no interest in the violin, but he got to have piano lessons, and he became a really good pianist. I became an autodidact.
Our father used to bring me and my brothers to the Tanglewood grounds during open rehearsals on Saturdays in the summers, and eventually we used to go to the concerts on Sundays. Through exposure to the Boston Symphony throughout my childhood I got to hear a lot of really great music. And as a teenager I was pretty much on my own, and I would go to Tanglewood to hear student concerts. Never having the opportunity to be anything other than independent, I enjoyed a great deal of freedom as a young person. If (when) I got in trouble I never told my parents about it. And they never asked.
The Burton I grew up with had a very difficult time telling anything but the truth, or what he felt to be the truth. I imagine it might have gotten him in trouble if he shared his feelings with his colleagues in the Boston Symphony, so he kept pretty much to himself. He read a lot, and knew a great deal about history.
I remember going to a party with him after a concert that was hosted by some very rich people who acted like they were superior to everyone else. I mentioned that I didn’t feel comfortable around those people, and he said that they were people who supported the orchestra, and that we needed to be nice to them. His eventually married someone from a “donor” class family, and grew to be comfortable with it. I prefer to remember my father as a member of the intellectual working class.
When I returned to string playing in my early thirties and I had an instrument in hand, I was able to communicate with my father in his language, and I finally was able to recognize that were cut from the same cloth. When I had the opportunity to play chamber music with him (he came to Illinois to play concerts three or four times), it was always a wonderful experience. He was a truly great musician.
I sometimes hear shadows of the familiar sounds I heard in childhood when I practice. And when I see my hands and arms behaving the way I observed my father’s hands and arms behaving, I feel like he is a part of me, and that best part of him is with me to carry on in music making.
I used to write CD reviews for the American Record Guide, and my father read all my reviews. He would call to talk about the recordings. I loved those phone calls. He would also give me solutions to problems I had with difficult passages in the viola parts I played in orchestra, which I would share with my section-mates. And he would listen to recordings I made of the recitals I played. Some of them must have been painful for him to hear because my development as a violinist and as a violist in adulthood was slow.
A note from Marshall, an excerpt from his memoir.
. . . This was before my father, Burton Fine, was a research chemist with NASA, having gotten his Ph.D. in chemistry from IIT. After leaving Cleveland, he would serve as principal violist of the BSO for 29 years before being demoted in 1993; and he retired on New Year’s Eve 2004.My father, Burton Fine, died last night at his home in Newton, Massachusetts. He was 94.
I know a fair bit about what he did as a chemist. Many years ago I read his dissertation, The Solubility of Iodine in Benzene/Carbon Tetrachloride Solutions. It does not sound to me like the work of a rocket scientist; but at the time I read it I could neither know, nor care about, nor even comprehend its practical aspects. I have not seen it since; it must be misplaced in his own house, or hidden. As a rocket scientist, he might have been involved with the Gemini Project. I believe it was classified and remains so, which means I will never know. He wrote 18 papers, mostly for a journal called Combustion and Flame, which I located at the chemistry library at Yale at the time I unsuccessfully auditioned for their music school in 1977. Strangely, the shortest of these--a critical letter to the editor in 1961--became the most widely quoted. Almost every subsequent article would refer to it, freely.
Musically, though, he is a mystery. What I know of his early years is awfully sketchy. He won a composition prize at age nine in his hometown of Philadelphia, where his ancestor, Joseph Fine (1877-1976) came to escape the pogroms of Nicholas III. His prizewinning piece, a cradle song, was orchestrated and performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra under Stokowski. Yet I have been unable to find so much as a mention of it.
At age thirteen he applied to study composition with Menotti and was turned down. It seems he had also been playing violin at the same time; he had several years study with Ivan Galamian, and his father (my grandfather) Nathan (1907-1985) was also an excellent amateur violinist. Anyway he turned there. At some point--for how many summers I don’t know, but it must have been several--he attended Galamian’s camp at Meadowmount. That was probably how he became acquainted with the viola, for it is well known that Galamian would hire a cellist to work in string quartets with three violinists at a time, one of whom would obviously have to play viola. Later he attended Tanglewood (1950) and Red Fox (1954 or so). Despite this musical excellence, he majored in chemistry instead of music while he attended Penn. Why, I’m not sure. Perhaps Grandpa might have told him that music was best left an amateur sidelight. Which is why he wound up in Chicago as a doctoral student in chemistry at the time he married Mom.
17 comments:
I am sorry that this voice is now quiet, but I'm sure you will continue to hear him.
Condolence on the loss of an incredible father, Elaine. I mean, a "very credible" but amazingly musical father.
Beautifully written
My condolences. What a wonderful tribute to your father, and what a marvelous life he lived, benzene notwithstanding!
Elaine! It has been such a long time since we have had any contact, probably 50 years! I'm sorry to hear about your dad. he was a totally unique and brilliant person and musician. I remember his laugh very well! I remember you from Tanglewood in the 70's when I was a student in the BUTI and BMC programs. I also remember your flute playing, You had a huge, rich beautiful sound and very expressive. My life is very different than when you knew me. I have been out of the Bso for nearly 17 years. Anyways, you can contact me at nhbolter@aol.com if you would like. I wish you all the best in your continued life endeavors. Norman Bolter
Oh, Elaine, I'm so sorry. May his memory be for a blessing.
This is a lovely tribute to your father, a remarkable musician.
Elaine - Wow! This is an amazing collections of memories of Dad! I remembered some of these things but going to Red Fox in 1954 was something I didn't know. I went to Red Fox in 1978 and that one summer was part of what set me on my life journey to non-professional music. The other part was provided by Dad himself. "If you haven't made your debut by the age of 15 you probably never will."
Richard, was your father joking? Maybe not, but not all pro musicians are prodgies.
I had no idea he said that to you, Richard! And Dad probably didn't realize that parents are the people responsible for making debuts (and careers) possible for their teenage children. I imagine Marshall got his information from Dad, who never shared it with me. And for the record, Richard, I loved hearing you practice piano, and I think about it every time (which is every day) I play from your music.
My sympathy to the Fine family. I studied as an adult about a year with Burton at his home in Newton, in the 80's I think. I remember him as an excellent musician, teacher and human being. Researching about a year ago I came to learn more about his genius outside music that I had no idea about when taking viola lessons from him. I loved working with him and news of his death shook me. This tribute is lovely. Thank you.
Hi Elaine, As you know, I spent many years studying with your father and learned so much working with him. Before I ever knew him and you and Marshall, I attended Red Fox and at age 13 your parents came to the camp and did a performance for us where he played Viola D’more and your mom played flute. It was wonderful! I had no idea until I read Marshall’s article here that your dad had been a student at Red Fox! I went there for 6 summers missing Richard by a few years. I attended the funeral on line yesterday and was totally moved and saddened and feel so much for your family. I actually met Susan around the time you did. I watched her play and imagined you and your father playing with her. I will always remember your father and I have copies of many of the orchestra parts I studied with him and also his writing in my music, especially of Bach Cello Suites. I am sending my love and hope to see you and your family sometime in the near future. Yours, Carol Hutter
Thank you, Carol.
Imagine my surprise to hear, for the first time ever, that I was from the "donor class." I will take this as an erroneous compliment, as I was as generous as can be to your children and grandchildren. My family consisted of mainly "intellectuals" who worked as well. Your father was enormously loved by all his children and those who spent any time with him. I am deeply sorry for your loss. He loved you enormously.
I just happened upon this story about Burton Fine, and many memories came flooding back. First of all, deepest condolences on the loss of your father. Reading your story made me realize how absolutely amazing and talented he was - in so many different ways! I have so many things in common with you, and I'm not really sure where to begin. You mention Philadelphia - I've lived in suburban Philadelphia for 60 years - which is about how long I've played violin. The violin I play was my father's. Speaking of my father, you mentioned Cleveland. Dad was born in Cleveland. Your father was a chemist and he studied in Illinois, I believe? My father played bass, violin and sang professionally in a dance band while studying microbiology and biochemistry and earning three degrees at the University of Illinois. Dad would have been 105 today. Another coincidence, you and I have the same first name! And probably the most amazing is I actually went to grad school at the University of Massachusetts with your brother, Marshall. I honestly can't remember if he was an undergrad or a grad student at that time, but of all the people I met there, back in 1977, I would say I remember him the most. We became friends and hung out as much as our schedule would allow. I really enjoyed knowing him. I have to go back and re-read your memories. I know there are other things we have in common that I just find amazing, even though they may be small coincidences. In the meantime, please accept my deepest condolences on the loss of your father. Say hi to Marshall for me if you get the chance. He probably won't remember me, but you never know! Take care, Elaine (Pagano) Sloan
Sorry, didn't mean to leave my comment as "anonymous." Here's my name and I will comment further if I discover anything else that I consider an amazing coincidence! Regards,
Elaine
Wow, Elaine! And would you believe that I live an hour's drive from the University of Illinois? My father would travel there from Chicago to see his violinist friend, Howard Osborn (now deceased) who was a student there and started teaching in the Math department in 1956. I believe he played some jobs there with Howard (probably dance band jobs), so he might have rubbed bow arms in Urbana with your father being a scientist/musician, a dual occupation that was far rarer in the 1950s than it is now. And that you were friends with Marshall is amazing to know. Marshall is no longer alive: he died in a car accident ten years ago. I'm sure he would have remembered you, particularly since our name is on the rare side. We have so many intersections in our lives! And thank you for the condolences. Going through this grief is more complicated than I thought it would be. Our memories allow for only so much at a time, right?
It was just a far different life he had with you than the one he grew up in or that I grew up in. He was as uncomfortable as I was at that party and with those people. I wanted to present a picture of the person I knew best from childhood. We all grieve in our own ways. I am deeply sorry for your loss as well. And you played beautifully at the memorial, which he would have appreciated.
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