This is the third Naxos/Diamond/Seattle
series CD to come my way. Each time
I have counted myself fortunate to be
reviewing these discs. Part of the pleasure
is renewing acquaintance with Delos
recordings first issued in the early
1990s. Bless Naxos and Delos for sorting
out a deal for the licensing of this
series. It deserves a permanent place
in the catalogue. It also deserves to
be extended or gap-filled. Before financial
imperatives strangled this heroic initiative
professionally delivered much had been
achieved. Lest we forget - the other
two Diamond CDs are 8.559154
(Symphonies 2 and 4) and 8.559156
(Symphony 8, Suite from TOM,
This Sacred Ground).
Naxos now remind us
of this and deliver to a new generation
of music-lovers the potency and gripping
music-making to be found in these three
works.
Both Kaddish and Psalm,
separated by half a century describe
a similar arc from contemplation perhaps
with a edgily hassidic-rhapsodic accent
through violent protest and back to
contemplation. Both declare depths and
profundities. We cannot bracket either
of these works with Schuman’s American
Festival or Bernstein’s Candide
or Copland’s Outdoor Overture
or Piston’s Toccata. Both
pieces are better understood as companions
to Schuman’s Credendum or In
Praise of Shahn. Kaddish is
a powerful prayer - the ancient Hebrew
prayer for the dead. It was written
for Yo Yo Ma and premiered by him with
this orchestra and conductor on 9 April
1989. I wonder how often he has played
it since. In any event Starker plays
this masterfully subdued work with integrity
and unwavering concentration. As for
Psalm, this was written
in Paris and was dedicated to André
Gide after it had been completed. It
was premiered on 10 December 1936 (the
booklet says 1937 but my encyclopaedia
claims 1936) by the Rochester Philharmonic
Orchestra conducted by Howard Hanson
as part of the Festival of American
Music.
The Third Symphony
was written in the same year as
his chef d’oeuvre, the Fourth Symphony.
It is in four movements starting with
an overwhelmingly propulsive and archetypically
American Allegro deciso (very
deciso). It is exciting and compulsive
- a little like a vicious Schuman allegro
but with infusions of something more
yielding - say Vaughan Williams. In
fact the contemplative andante recalls
RVW’s Fifth Symphony in its placid yet
not blandly reflective course. Diamond
does not have quite the lyric impulse
of say Piston in the 1930s and early
1940s but he is no slouch either when
it comes to piacevole writing.
The third movement contains some pre-echoes
of the Fourth Symphony. Its Adagio
assai finale again proclaims a composer
rejecting showmanship and embracing
a sincere message in tones we can relate
to Copland’s Tender Land and
even to Gerald Finzi’s pastoral poignancy.
It has a sustained elegiac strain that
may well reflect the bereavement and
need for consolation of a nation still
mourning its wartime losses.
Gerard Schwarz now
conducts the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic
Orchestra, just down the road from where
I live. Would that he could be tempted
to include the Diamond Third Symphony
in one of his concerts. With the exception
of some Panufnik (Sinfonia Sacra
and Heroic Overture) the
Schwarz/RLPO have been paying safe in
repertoire terms. A pity.
To return to this disc:
This is the Third Symphony’s only recording.
The work was premiered, five years after
it had been written, on 3 November 1950,
by the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted
by Charles Munch. It is not completely
new to me. For some years I knew it
from a radio tape of a broadcast by
the Juilliard Theatre Orchestra conducted
by Julius Morel. This stunning recording
by the Delos/Seattle team replaces that
tape. It is not just the recording quality
but the authentic, irrepressible spirit
and sincerity that radiates from Schwarz’s
labours that convince. What we have
here is not a mere catalogue gap-filler
but a fine and well-wrought performance.
A disc not to be missed
if you are at all sympathetic to the
tonal-melodic strain in twentieth century
music. No glitz ... no superficiality
... but music written from the heart
to the heart.
Rob Barnett
Janos Starker (cello) 