Symphony No. 3; Psalm, Kaddish Naxos 8.559155

Composer: David Diamond

Conductor: Gerard Schwarz

Seattle Symphony Orchestra

Artist: Janos Starker (Cello)

While in no way demeaning the many fine works that have come from Boulez and gifted composers who trod the chaste path of serialism, time has proven them wrong in consigning Diamond and his gloriously unrepentant Romantics to the trash bin of music history. In music, as in life itself, there are many roads to truth, many different drums whose rhythms attract some and repel others. One thing is very clear: many composers and audiences have either re-embraced the Romantic spirit or never left its enveloping warmth in the first place.

David Diamond's patience and determination have served him well, and it is a blessing that he has survived attack and neglect for many decades. He is now considered, with ample reason, to be a national treasure whose music taps into an American psyche hungering for a musical experience analogous or equivalent to spiritual satisfaction.

Diamond composed his Symphony No. 3 in 1945, though it had to wait another five years for its premiere with Charles Munch and the Boston Symphony. Initially, according to the composer, Artur Rodzinski and the Chicago Symphony had promised to perform it, “but things kept coming up, and it was never played.” Several years later, Diamond, who had known Munch since 1936, ran into the Boston Symphony Orchestra's con­ductor in Paris, showed him the score and explained the difficulties he had faced in trying to get it performed.

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