Fine expressed
her feelings [about World War II] in two song
collections. The first consists of two songs,
“Epigram,” and “Epitaph: upon the death
of Sir Albert Morton’s Wife,” on texts by Sir
William Jones (1746-1794) and Sir Henry Wotton
(1568-1639). “Epigram” is a parent’s
hope that a baby will live, and “Epitaph” is
a statement about a wife who died not long after her
husband’s death. She wrote the second collection,
“Songs of Our Times” (1943) for a concert
that Lazare Saminsky produced at the Temple Emmanuel [in
New York] to support the Russian/American efforts in the
war.
–Heidi Von Gunden,
The Music of Vivian Fine, Scarecrow Press,
1999