David Diamond: Symphony No. 1; Violin Concerto No. 2; The Enormous Room

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
David Diamond's Symphony 1 (1941) is an exuberant work, brassy and brash, filled with spunk, just the sort of piece a young composer, fresh from his studies with Nadia Boulanger in Paris and feeling his oats, would write. It shows Diamond as having an original voice, unique to American romanticism. His music is filled with all manner of punctuated rhythms, staggered chords, and sudden fanfares--and the occasional meditative passage. The Violin Concerto is a 1947 composition that does not call for extreme versatility (though Ilkka Talvi does have her moments). Delos's David Diamond series is uniformly quite successful. Recommended. --Paul Cook

David Diamond: Symphony No. 1; Violin Concerto No. 2; The Enormous Room, Music, David Diamond, Gerard Schwarz, Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Ilkka Talvi, Classical, Classical Music, Concerto, Orchestral, Orchestral Music, Symphonic, Symphony, Violin Concerto

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IN TWO WEEKS SIX DIAMOND CDS

David Diamond: Symphony No. 1; Violin Concerto No. 2; The Enormous Room

Manufacturer: Delos Records
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Concertos | Forms & Genres | Classical | Styles | Music
Violin | Strings | Instruments | Classical | Styles | Music
General | Symphonies | Classical | Styles | Music
General | Classical | Styles | Music
Similar Items:

Diamond: Music For Romeo And Juliet/Psalm/Kaddish For Violoncello And Orchestra/Symphony No.3

David Diamond: Symphony No. 8; Suite from the Ballet TOM; This Sacred Ground

Diamond: Symphonies 2 & 4 / Concerto for Orchestra

David Diamond: Symphony No. 3; Psalm, Kaddish

ASIN: B0000006Y5
Release Date: 1993-08-13

Tracks:

Symphony No. 1: Allegro moderato con energia
Symphony No. 1: Andante maestoso
Symphony No. 1: Maestoso - Adagio - Allegro vivo
Violin Concerto No. 2: Allegro aperto
Violin Concerto No. 2: Adagio affetuoso
Violin Concerto No. 2: Allegro vivo
The Enormous Room

Amazon.com

David Diamond's Symphony 1 (1941) is an exuberant work, brassy and brash, filled with spunk, just the sort of piece a young composer, fresh from his studies with Nadia Boulanger in Paris and feeling his oats, would write. It shows Diamond as having an original voice, unique to American romanticism. His music is filled with all manner of punctuated rhythms, staggered chords, and sudden fanfares--and the occasional meditative passage. The Violin Concerto is a 1947 composition that does not call for extreme versatility (though Ilkka Talvi does have her moments). Delos's David Diamond series is uniformly quite successful. Recommended. --Paul Cook

Customer Reviews:

IN TWO WEEKS SIX DIAMOND CDS.......2003-06-21

SYMPHONY 1 IS A JOY. THE VIOLIN CONCERTO IS ONE OF AMERICA'S BEST. GERALD SCHWARZ OF SEATTLE SYMPHONY HAS ALSO RECORDED SYMPHONIES 2, 4 AND 8 FOR DELOS OF HOLLYWOOD ALONG WITH THE ENORMOUS ROOM, CONCERTO FOR SMALL ORCHESTRA, SUITE FOR TOM, AND THIS SACRED GROUND. DELOS DE 3141, 3093, AND 3119 IN THE EARLY NINETIES. I BOUGHT USED AND THEY SHOW THEIR WEAR. PEOPLE FROM ALL OVER THE NATION LOVE DIAMOND.

David Diamond: Symphony No. 1; Violin Concerto No. 2

Average customer rating:

great listening
One Diamond, One Emerald, One Tourmaline

David Diamond: Symphony No. 1; Violin Concerto No. 2

Manufacturer: Naxos American
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Symphonies | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Classical | Styles | Music

4-for-3 Classical | 4-for-3 Music | Stores | Music

4-for-3 All Music | 4-for-3 Music | Stores | Music
Similar Items:

David Diamond: Symphonies Nos. 2 & 4
David Diamond: Symphony No. 8; Suite from the Ballet TOM; This Sacred Ground
David Diamond: Symphony No. 3; Psalm, Kaddish
Rorem: Three Symphonies
Creston: Symphonies 1-3

ASIN: B00009NH8G
Release Date: 2003-06-17

Tracks:

Allegro Moderato Con Energia
Andante Maestoso
Maestoso - Adagio - Allegro Vivo
Allegro Aperto
Adagio Affettuoso
Allegro Vivo
The Enormous Room

Customer Reviews:

great listening.......2004-04-19

The Symphony 1 is a delight and the Violin Concerto is highly engaging and moving. I can think of few pieces that so accurately capture the period in America from the Great Depression to WWII. In some sections you can practically see the masses limping, yet driving forward - always believing (despite setback after setback) in the possibilties that lie ahead. In other sections you can hear the exuberance of a nation becoming 'the dream.' Having heard many stories of those who lived through those times, I was emotionally shocked by the powerful way that Diamond evoked the mood of those stories so that images formed in my head that made the stories richer. This disc works beautifully, kudos to Naxos for this gift.

One Diamond, One Emerald, One Tourmaline.......2003-07-23

This CD is a reissue of one of the Diamond/Schwarz/Seattle series on Delos that electrified us in the early 1990s, introducing many of us to the breadth of orchestral music from this Romantic American master from the mid-20th century. And it contains one truly wonderful piece ('The Enormous Room'), one brashly charming near-miss (the First Symphony), and one nonentity (the Second Violin Concerto).

The Second Violin Concerto is a pale and disappointing ramble for non-virtuosic violinist with rather more interesting writing for the orchestra. There is some rhythmic interest, as always in Diamond, and the finale, a rondo, does manage to get off the ground, but it is no surprise that this concerto had only one performance prior to its being recorded here in 1991. The performance recorded here is fine.

The First Symphony, composed not long after Diamond had returned to America from his studies with the fabled Nadia Boulanger, is full of youthful brio. There are brassy fanfares, bell sounds, catchy percussion effects and clever neoclassic counterpoint clothed in Romantic harmonies. What there isn't is much melodic interest. The orchestration, a craft that Diamond later mastered, is occasionally noticeably clunky. Still, this is a boisterous (and, in spots, lyrical) engaging piece and, taken in context, certainly points to the emerging mastery that is evident in, say, the third and fourth symphonies. [The Seattle recording of the Third has been reissued on budget label Naxos; the Fourth has not, as far as I know. And there is a justly famous version of the Fourth, coupled with Harris's Third and Randall Thompson's Second--all of them masterpieces--conducted by Leonard Bernstein still available here at Amazon.]

'The Enormous Room', written in 1948 (and the latest piece recorded here), evokes E. E. Cummings' book of that name. In it Cummings recounts his internment, along with 60 others, in 'the enormous room,' a French detention facility during World War I. The piece is a 15-minute 'fantasia for orchestra' inspired by Cummings' words, 'The Enormous Room is filled with a new and beautiful darkness, the darkness of snow outside, falling and falling and falling with the silent and actual gesture which has touched the soundless country of my mind as a child touches a toy it loves.' A musing, slow, softly lyrical beginning built on two haunting themes and rarely rising above mezzo forte, gradually builds to a climactic ending. Schwarz and his Diamond-savvy orchestra play with suppressed intensity until the music bursts its bonds in the final climax. The piece and the performance are a triumph.

Scott Morrison

Track Listings: