When asked for biographical details, Irving Fine replies, "I've been at Harvard for a long time." But there is more to his story than that. Teacher, composer, conductor, performer, and critic, Fine is a complete musician.

He came to the University as an undergraduate in 1933 and, with a few breaks, has been here since. In 1938 he studied in New York with Nadia Boulanger, the famous French teacher, and followed her back to Paris for the summer of '39. With the out-break of the war, he returned to Harvard to become a teaching fellow in the Music Department.

Since then he says he has followed the regular order of things: instructor in 1942 and assistant professor in 1945, when he helped revise the curriculum of the Department. Emphasizing personal instruction, he is highly praised by his students for his interest and teaching ability. He now hopes for a General Education course which would stress student participation in music. Choral works from important periods would be sung by members of the course: Plainsong, Ars Nova, the Renaissance, Bach, Beethoven, and Stravinsky. In this way, the students would "get inside the music." Lectures would relate the compositions to the artistic philosophy of the times. Fine considers a similar course for the many chamber music performers in the University of equal value.

But he thinks teaching should be mixed with composition, and he has been writing music steadily since he composed the score for a Dunster House musical not long after his return from Paris. He has done a good deal of choral composition, and his works include the Alice in Wonderland Suite and The Choral 'New Yorker.' Koussevitzky has heaped praise on his Toccata Concertante. It has had several performances this year by the Boston Symphony and was played under the composer's direction at Sanders Theater this winter. His new Partita for Woodwind Quintet was performed last month at M.I.T.

Though Stravinsky refers to Irving Fine as "my son," his compositions are distinguished by originality of style. In an attempt at classification, Boston critics have dubbed him a member of the Stravinsky-Piston-Boulanger school, but the title is essentially meaningless. He writes with extreme craftsmanship and ingenious contrapuntal technique, marked by a delicate sense of appropriateness and taste.

Fine is highly esteemed by Koussevitzky and has been closely associated with him as a student of conducting at Tanglewood. Not long ago, Koussevitzky called him in unexpectedly to play the piano solo in the Martinu Concerto Grosso. During the rehearsal, Fine, who was reading the work for the first time, made a mistake. Koussevitzky mistook his grimace for a smile and stopped the Orchestra. In the thick Russian accents which defy reproduction, the Conductor announced, "When we make a mistake in this Orchestra, we don't laugh; we weep!" Koussevitzky was so impressed with the epigram that after the rehearsal he called Fine to his room and repeated it.

As acting conductor of the Glee Club several years ago and conductor of the Harvard-Radcliffe Chamber Orchestra and Chorus, Fine has been encouraging the performance of rarely heard contemporary and older music, a responsibility he feels strongly. Under his guidance, the Music Club has been revived since the war for the best years in its history.

For two years, Fine wrote about music in Boston for the magazine. "Modern Music," a quarterly written entirely by composers. But he sees the value of criticism by composers more for what it reveals of the artist himself than as important opinion on other works.

Professional critics have been accustomed to refer to Irving Fine as "a man of promise." His most recent compositions and his varied activities in the University, however, have shown that he is already an all-around musician of highest standing in America. By his music he will be known in the future. An advanced student at Tanglewood last summer commented after hearing one of his works, "I should like to congratulate Mr. Fine for expressing all he has to say through his music."