This year marks the centennial anniversary of the birth of Irving Fine, a composer and former professor at the University. Two years after Brandeis' founding, Fine left his position at Harvard University to join Brandeis' up-and-coming Music department-a risky move at the time. He proved to be an enormous asset to Brandeis as he expanded the Music department tremendously, bringing in talents such as Leonard Bernstein, Harold Shapero, Arthur Berger and Caldwell Titcomb during his tenure.

 On Sunday afternoon, the University Concert Series held a performance in Slosberg Music Center titled "A Tribute to Irving Fine"-commemorating Fine's work and influences. The concert highlighted Fine and Shapero's professional and personal relationship, and the program provided photos of the two working together at both Brandeis and the Tanglewood Music Festival in the mid-1940s. The concert also featured works composed by both Shapero and Fine, both neoclassicalists of the 20th century, as well as works by B?(c)la Bart??k and Claude Debussy, also 20th-century artists.

Earlier in the year Sally Pinkas Ph.D. '91 and her husband, Evan Hirsh, performed a memorial concert for Shapero, who passed away last spring. This Sunday, Pinkas returned to play again, this time in memory of Fine.

Pinkas, solo pianist and professor at Dartmouth College, and Prof. Daniel Stepner (MUS), first violinist of Brandeis' Lydian String Quartet, performed duets as well as solos from the early to mid-20th century.

The concert began with Sonata for Violin and Piano, written by Shapero in 1942. The three movements were drastically different from one another-the "Moderato" light, airy and playful; the "Adagio" sad, soulful and longing; and the "Alegro preciso" fast and frantic with a few melodic sequences woven in.

Next came Bart??k's Sonata for Solo Violin, written in 1944 and performed by Stepner. The program mentions that Bart??k was highly influenced by Bach, Beethoven and Brahms. The first movement, "Tempo de ciaccona," "owes a great deal to the grand nineteenth-century manner of playing unaccompanied Bach," the program commented. The piece featured many differing musical techniques such as chords, fast sequences of notes that ran up and down the instrument and pizzicato to create a complexity of sound. At one point in the piece, Stepner played pizzicato while still playing arco, a technique that required a great amount of coordination.

Next, Pinkas performed Debussy's Estampes, written in 1903. The movement, the "Pagodes" at times sounded like bells, the Pinkas playing the piano rapidly, scaling up and down the instrument and oscillating between notes. The next movement, "La sori?(c)e dans Granada" (The Evening in Granada,) felt much as the title of the piece suggested-like a party scene with many things happening at once, converging in a complexity of notes and rhythms. The piece drifted off at the end, reminiscent of a night on the town that was finally dying down with people returning home. The last piece the duo played was composed by Fine himself. Sonata for Violin and Piano, written in 1946, definitely had traces of the previous three pieces.

The program mentioned that Fine said that his Sonata is "essentially tonal, diatonic and moderately dissonant, neoclassic in its formal approach and (according to some critics) neo-romantic in its expressive attitudes." I could definitely hear some of the dissonant tones that Fine describes, especially in the "Lento con moto," as notes diverged from the key signature. The piece was just as beautiful though, indeed embodying these "expressive attitudes" and romantic tropes that Fine described.

The final movement of the Sonata, "Vivo," was, as the title suggests, lively and very bold and rousing. At times though, the movement would transition into a more morose and intense melody. These breaks from the high energy of the piece allowed the listener to appreciate the liveliness and notice the fast, vibrant parts even more.

The concert was very impressive-Pinkas and Stepner are clearly extremely talented and experienced with these composers and musical styles, and the concert did justice to Fine's life and legacy.