Symphony No. 1

 

 

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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.

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

Les cent dernières années ont vu la composition de plusieurs cycles de symphonies de très grande qualité, depuis celui de Guy Ropartz (1864-1955) à celui de Kalevi Aho (né en 1949), en passant par celui de Carl Nielsen (1865-1931), d'Alexandre Glazunov (1865-1936), de Jean Sibelius (1865-1957), de Wilhelm Peterson-Berger (1867-1942), de Charles Tournemire (1870-1939), de Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958), de Hugo Alfvén (1872-1960), d'Havergal Brian (1876-1972), de Jan van Gilse (1881-1944), de Karl Weigl (1881-1949), de Nikolaļ Miaskovsky (1881-1950), de Georges Enesco (1881-1954), de Gian Francesco Malipiero (1882-1973), d'Arnold Bax (1883-1953), d'Egon Wellesz (1885-1974), d'Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959), d'Ernst Toch (1887-1964), de Kurt Atterberg (1887-1974), de Bohuslav Martinü (1890-1959), de Serge Prokofiev (1891-1953), d'Arthur Honegger (1892-1955), de Darius Milhaud (1892-1974), de Jean Absil (1893-1974), d'Erwin Schulhoff (1894-1942), de Walter Piston (1894-1976), de Paul Hindemith (1895-1963), de Boris Lyatoshinsky (1895-1968), de William Grant Still (1895-1978), d'Howard Hanson (1896-1931), de Richard Flury (1896-1967), de Roger Sessions (1896-1985), de Jean Rivier (1896-1987), d'Alexandre Tansman (1897-1986), de Roy Harris (1898-1979), de Marcel Mihalovici (1898-1985), de Carlos Chávez (1899-1978), de George Antheil (1900-1959), d'Ernst Krenek (1900-1991), d'Edmund Rubbra (1901-1986), de Conrad Beck (1901-1986), de Vissarion Chebaline (1902-1963), de Gavriil Popov (1904-1972), de Karl Amadeus Hartmann (1905-1963), d'Eduard Tubin (1905-1982), de William Alwyn (1905-1985), d'Eugène Bozza (1905-1991), de Benjamin Frankel (1906-1973), de Dmitri Chostakovitch (1906-1975) bien sūr, mais aussi de Paul Creston (1906-1985), d'Arnold Cooke (1906-2005), d'Ahmed Adnan Saygun (1907-1991), de Camargo Guarnieri (1907-1993), de Miloslav Kabelác (1908-1979), de Vagn Holmboe (1909-1996), de William Schuman (1910-1992), d'Allan Pettersson (1911-1980), d'Alan Hovhaness (1911-2000), de Donald Gillis (1912-1978), de Daniel Jones (1912-1993), de George Lloyd, 1913-1998), d'Humphrey Searle (1915-1982), de Vincent Persichetti (1915-1987), d'Isang Yun (1917-1995), de Richard Arnell (né en 1917), de George Rochberg (1918-2005), de Lex van Delden (1919-1988), de Cláudio Santoro (1919-1989), de Mieczyslaw Weinberg (1919-1996), de Galina Oustvolskaļa (1919-2006), d'Alexander Lokshin (1920-1987), de Peter Racine Fricker (1920-1990), de Robert Simpson (1921-1997), de Malcolm Arnold (1921-2006), de Francis Thorne (né en 1922), d'Hans Werner Henze (né en 1926), d'Einojuhani Rautavaara (né en 1928), d'Avet Terterian (1929-1994), de John Davison (né en 1930), d'Aubert Lemeland (né en 1932), de David Morgan (né en 1932), de Krzysztof Penderecki (né en 1933), d'Alfred Schnittke (1934-1998), de Peter Maxwell Davies (né en 1934), de Philip Glass (né en 1937), de Valentin Silvestrov (né en 1937), de William Bolcom (né en 1938), de Boris Tishchenko (né en 1939), de Leif Segerstam (né en 1944), de Péteris Vasks (né en 1946), ou bien encore de Jean-Claude Wolff (né en 1946), sans compter de nombreux chef-d'oeuvres isolés. L'ensemble des onze symphonies que nous a laissé David Diamond (1915-2005) est l'un de plus importants parmi ceux-ci.

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