Arts and Letters

America has lost one of its most beloved composers. Ross Lee Finney passed away on February 4, 1997, in Carmel, CA, shortly after his 90th birthday. Born December 23, 1906, in Wells, MN, where his father was a Methodist minister, Ross' early training was at Carleton College, with Edward Burlingame Hill, and in Europe with Nadia Boulanger, Alban Berg, and Francesco Malipiero. He later worked with Roger Sessions.

Ross joined the faculty of Smith College in 1929, where he remained for 17 years, founding the Smith College Archives and the Valley Music Press. He soon published a performing edition of Francesco Geminiani's Twelve Sonatas for Violin and Continuo, Opus I, revealing his keen interest in musicology. His settings of poetry by Archibald MacLeish brought him the Connecticut Valley Prize, and he was awarded a Pulitzer Scholarship in 1937 for his First String Quartet. Assisted by a Guggenheim Fellowship that year, he worked in Europe, composing his First Symphony, Communique, subsequently premiered by the Boston Pops, with Ross conducting. During World War II he served in Europe with distinction in the Office of Strategic Services, for which he was awarded its Certificate of Merit and a Purple Heart.

Upon returning to civilian life, he plunged into an unusually fertile period, composing a steady stream of brilliant works, including the lovely Christmastime Piano Sonata of 1945 and the Pilgrim Psalms. The Fourth String Quartet of 1948 received the publication award from the Society for the Publication of American Music and was performed around the world.

Following his second Guggenheim Fellowship of 1947-8, Ross began his long and distinguished tenure as composer-in-residence and Professor of Composition at the School of Music of the University of Michigan. At Michigan he established its excellent graduate program for composers, initiated the Electronic Music Studio, founded the Composers Forums and the Midwest Composers Symposium, as well as secondary classes for performers who wished instruction in composing. With a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, he launched the Contemporary Directions Ensemble and its Concert Series. He began the vital Friday afternoon composer seminars for "shop talk" and detailed study.

Many of Ross' former students received encouragement from him in pursuit of their careers; all praise him for his candid insights into the hundreds of concerns that emerge during the composition of a work. He expected professional standards, thorough craft, and familiarity with literature, including the Beethoven symphonies, string quartets, and piano sonatas, as well as masterpieces of the present.

Ross Lee Finney was a brilliant and inspiring teacher, yet he might have worried that people would assume that teaching was more important to him than his own compositions. Such was emphatically not the case! He wrote steadily, brilliantly, producing two to five works a year throughout a long lifetime. There are four symphonies, eight string quartets, sonatas, all manner of chamber music, works for solo instruments, choral works, an opera, music for the Erick Hawkins Dance Company, and scores requiring electronic music. There have been commissions and performances too numerous to mention. His Elegy and March for solo trombone, I am proud to report, was written for me.

With the String Quartet No. 6, Ross began to shift to 12-tone music, adopting a "method of complementarity," through which he could order many details of his compositions based on 12-tone technique, while still adhering to his own modified tonal tradition. All works since that time follow some aspect of this new musical language, which he found to be stimulating and fresh.

Ross Lee Finney was a distinguished musical citizen. An internationally known lecturer, he was a traveling scholar for the U.S. Information Agency in 1960 and 61, touring Germany, England, Austria, Poland, and Greece, singing American folk songs to his own guitar accompaniments. For over sixty years, he was happily married to Gretchen Ludke Finney. Gretchen's scholarship, in literature, and delightful manner were enormously helpful to him. She was truly his other half. Although she preceded him in death, they are survived by their sons Ross, of Pacific Grove, CA, and Henry, of Los Alamos, NM.

Ross Lee Finney was a major creative force in many lives, certainly in mine. There was never a more sympathetic mentor, dear friend, or colleague. For his many blessings, we are all profoundly grateful.