The Race of Life (Fine, Vivian)

Sheet Music

• Scores and Parts (3)
• Arrangements and Transcriptions (1)
• Libretti (0)
• Other (0)
• Source Files (0)

Scores and Parts

 Piano Score (original)
*#245300 - 4.21MB, 28 pp. -  0.0/10 2 4 6 8 10 (-) - !N/!N/!N - 620×⇩ - rhymesandchymes

PDF typeset by Paul Hawkins
rhymesandchymes (2012/8/4)

 Timpani
*#245302 - 0.68MB, 8 pp. -  0.0/10 2 4 6 8 10 (-) - !N/!N/!N - 247×⇩ - rhymesandchymes

PDF typeset by Paul Hawkins
rhymesandchymes (2012/8/4)

 Double Bass
*#245303 - 0.87MB, 11 pp. -  0.0/10 2 4 6 8 10 (-) - !N/!N/!N - 302×⇩ - rhymesandchymes

PDF typeset by Paul Hawkins
rhymesandchymes (2012/8/4)

Publisher. Info. Vivian Fine Estate Copyright Performance Restricted Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives 1.0 [tag/del/mrg] © COPYRIGHT NOTICE. THIS FILE IS PROTECTED UNDER COPYRIGHT LAW. However, the lawful copyright owner has generously released the file for distribution at IMSLP under one of the Creative Commons licenses or the IMSLP Performance Restricted License, which allow for the free distribution (with proper attribution) of the file with various levels of restriction with respect to the creation of derivative works, commercial usage, or public performances. Misc. Notes References to different instruments show that the piano score was later used as a rehearsal score to accompany the 1956 orchestral score. Purchase Javascript is required for this feature.

Arrangements and Transcriptions

For Orchestra (Composer)

 Complete Score
*#245301 - 23.92MB, 122 pp. -  0.0/10 2 4 6 8 10 (-) - !N/!N/!N - 219×⇩ - rhymesandchymes

PDF typeset by Paul Hawkins
rhymesandchymes (2012/8/4)

Publisher. Info. Vivian Fine Estate Copyright Performance Restricted Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives 1.0 [tag/del] © COPYRIGHT NOTICE. THIS FILE IS PROTECTED UNDER COPYRIGHT LAW. However, the lawful copyright owner has generously released the file for distribution at IMSLP under one of the Creative Commons licenses or the IMSLP Performance Restricted License, which allow for the free distribution (with proper attribution) of the file with various levels of restriction with respect to the creation of derivative works, commercial usage, or public performances. Misc. Notes Orchestra: 2 flutes, 2 clarinets, bassoon, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, 2 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, piano, strings Purchase Javascript is required for this feature.

General Information

Navigation etc.

In 1956 Fine rescored The Race of Life for full orchestra. See First Performance info above for details. In 1961 it was performed by the Hudson Valley Philharmonic, Claude Monteux conducting, using slides of Thurber's drawings instead of dancers.

…it was quite a score and quite an experience. She [Fine] was a true collaborator in a field, that of composing for dance, which is so different from other kinds of program music that it calls for unique qualifications….My enthusiasm for James Thurber led me to select one of his series of drawings, at the time brand new, concerning the adventures of a middle class American Family called The Race of Life. Vivian and I both loved his dry and improbable humor…The scenes were all quite short, six of them, and had subject matter with a challenging range: The Beautiful Stranger, Night Creatures, Indians, Spring Song, culminating in the achievement of the goal, a mountain top covered with the heart’s desire—gold, jewels and money.

Vivian Fine met all these moods with imagination and a full awareness of their Thurberian gaucherie and humor. Even his Beautiful Stranger is no chic adolescent, but plainly bears the germ of the full-grown Thurber female, rather hard, aggressive and blowsy. To catch such a conception in music was a difficult feat. She treated the Indians with a very funny version of an authentic pseudo-Indian popular song. Both in the music and the dance our Indians were phony, gaudy cigar-store fixtures. Night Creatures was handled with grotesquerie, but still with a dreamlike delicacy. At this point she added to the all-piano score a Flexotone whose sliding eeriness exactly met the requirements of the weird scene. In its entirety it was a notable score—bright, humorous, expert.

….in all her undertakings in the dance field, she has an uncanny sense of what to choose as sound and that sine qua none for dance composers, a complete understanding of body rhythms and dramatic timing.

—Doris Humphrey, American Composers Alliance Bulletin, 1958

Review

Vivian Fine’s music is miraculously right for the romping nonsense it accompanies.

—Mary O’Donnell, The Dance Observer, March 1938