Classic Ross Amico

Tag: David Diamond

David Diamond Centennial & This Week in Classical Music

Today is the 100th birthday of American composer David Diamond. I hope you’ll join me this morning for some 24-carat music.

George Antheil, Paul Ben-Haim, Percy Grainger, Joseph Holbrooke, Gordon Jacob, Gustav Mahler, Gian Carlo Menotti, Carl Orff, Ottorino Respighi, George Rochberg, Jacob Weinberg, and Henryk Wieniawski all had or have birthday anniversaries this week, as did some notable performers. We’ll get to what we can.

Also, Adrienne Sirken will join me around 10:00 to share some information about the The Golandsky Institute Summer Symposium and International Piano Festival. There’s a full week of outstanding musicianship ahead, with appearances in Princeton by pianist Ilya Itin; tenor Alex Richardson, cellist Sophie Shao, and pianist Thomas Bagwell; the remarkable monk-pianist Father Seán Duggan; young artist Wei Luo; jazz legend Dick Hyman; and clarinetist Richard Stoltzman with Yehudi Wyner. Learn more, if you just can’t wait, at http://www.golandskyinstitute.org.

Diamonds may be forever, but Classic Ross Amico thrives only from 6 to 11 a.m. ET, a veritable mayfly. Enjoy the music at WPRB 103.3 FM or online at wprb.com.

This is what I wish I were playing this morning, but somebody else got there first: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QAyE0HAB7s

This is music to make you feel good about life. Bless you, David Diamond. You deserve a cupcake.

July 9, 2015
WPRB’s Ross Amico Celebrates David Diamond

And now, for my next trick…

If you tune in tomorrow morning to WPRB 103.3 FM, you may encounter music by the following: George Antheil, Paul Ben-Haim, Boris Blacher, Percy Grainger, Joseph Holbrooke, Gordon Jacob, Gustav Mahler, Bohuslav Martinu, Gian Carlo Menotti, Carl Orff, Ottorino Respighi, George Rochberg, Jacob Weinberg, and Henryk Wieniawski – but I’m not sure, since I’m such a poor planner. However, they’re all in the box and ready to go, along with much else!

You will definitely hear David Diamond, since July 9th marks the 100th anniversary of his birth (though I see a couple of my colleagues have already played my favorite pieces, including the eternally fresh “Rounds for String Orchestra”).

Adrienne Sirken will drop by around 10:00 to tell us about the The Golandsky Institute Summer Symposium and International Piano Festival. There’s a full week of amazing music-making ahead, including appearances in Princeton by pianist Ilya Itin; tenor Alex Richardson, cellist Sophie Shao, and pianist Thomas Bagwell; the remarkable monk-pianist Father Seán Duggan; young artist Wei Luo; jazz legend Dick Hyman; and clarinetist Richard Stoltzman with Yehudi Wyner. Find out more right now at http://www.golandskyinstitute.org.

Hopefully it will be worth setting your alarm (and mine). Join me tomorrow morning, from 6 to 11 ET, at WPRB 103.3 FM or wprb.com.

When classes are out, Classic Ross Amico is in.

PHOTO: Nothing up my sleeve… PRESTO!

July 8, 2015
Diamond Perle Centenary Celebration

Happy Independence Day!

Is there a more neglected composer among symphonists of the “Greatest Generation” of American composers than David Diamond? I think not. Diamond composed 11 symphonies, and every one that I’ve heard has been wholly worthwhile. Yet, criminally, some of them have not even been recorded.

This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” we celebrate Diamond’s centenary (he was born on July 9, 1915), with his Symphony No. 4 and the orchestral fantasia “The Enormous Room,” after the autobiographical novel of E.E. Cummings.

In between, we observe the centenary of a seemingly disparate figure, George Perle (born on May 6, 1915). Diamond would occasionally construct a theme on a tone row, but his music was essentially tonal. Perle, by contrast, was twelve tone all the way, yet he managed, much like his musical hero, Alban Berg, to keep it lyrical. Despite their different approaches, both composers, Diamond and Perle, are quite direct in their appeal to the receptive listener.

I had been toying with the idea of programming Perle’s “Lyric Intermezzo,” a piano suite that manages to convey a romantic sensibility by way of serialism (it was inspired by Schumann’s “Waldszenen”). In the end, however, I opted for his eminently listenable – and Pulitzer Prize-winning – Wind Quintet No. 4.

I hope you’ll join me for “Pearls from Perle, Diamonds from Diamond,” this Sunday night at 10 ET, with a repeat Wednesday evening at 6; or that you’ll listen to it later as a webcast at http://www.wwfm.org.

An exhaustive analysis of Diamond’s symphonies by one of his former pupils:
http://alanbelkinmusic.com/Diamond/DD.html

David Diamond interview, conducted by Bruce Duffie:
http://www.bruceduffie.com/diamond.html

George Perle’s obituary in the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/24/arts/music/24perle.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

George Perle in conversation with David Dubal:

PHOTOS: Perle before swine (top); Diamond is forever

July 4, 2015
Respighi & Diamond Neoclassical Masters

Neoclassicism is the name of the game today, as we celebrate two composers who made their biggest splash appropriating styles and themes of the past.

Ottorini Respighi composed not only his “Ancient Airs and Dances” suites, but works – while not strictly speaking Neoclassical (in fact, more orgiastic) – evocative of Rome’s illustrious and/or notorious past. He also composed music redolent of the Catholic Church, with works influenced by Gregorian modes. Even his ballet, “Belkis, Queen of Sheba,” is set 3000 years ago.

The American composer David Diamond was asked by the conductor Dimitri Mitropoulos in 1944 for a new work. The only stipulation was that the piece be of a happy disposition, in defiance of the unsettling events unfolding in the world at large and in music in particular. (Mitropoulos was depressed from conducting too much 12-tone music.)

The result was the clear, cool “Rounds for String Orchestra,” which went on to become Diamond’s best-known music, a bona fide American classic.

Happy birthday, Ottorino Respighi (b. 1879) and David Diamond (b. 1915)!

Here’s violinist Uto Ughi in Respighi’s “Concerto Gregoriano”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWSKB8aZ884

And Diamond’s “Rounds for String Orchestra” (well worth it, if you can ignore the images): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6iF70Sn-4E

PHOTOS: Duo pianists Respighi (top) and Diamond

July 9, 2014

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