Diamond, David: Symphony Number 1; Violin Concerto Number 2; The Enormous Room.(David Diamond: Symphony Number 1; Violin Concerto Number 2)(Sound Recording Review)

The Seattle Symphony, Gerard Schwarz conducting, Ilkka Talvi, violin. Recorded in 1991 and 1992, at the Seattle Opera House. Engineer: John Eargle. 71+ minutes. Naxos 8.559157.

Diamond, like Roy Harris, Samuel Barber, Howard Hanson, William Schuman, and Walter Piston, is a modern Romantic composer who is working in a post-Romantic era. It is an era dominated by "academic" music, which is anything but in the Romantic tradition. (Note that I am here talking about "serious" music, as opposed to rock country, rap, jazz, etc., which, let's face it, have been the dominant music of our particular age for decades.) Consequently, Diamond and the others in the neo-Romantic school have been dismissed by some as out of touch with musical reality. I will leave it to others to determine if this is the case with each of these composers, but what we have on this disc is anything but musically vapid.

To be truthful, I have reviewed this material before (in my book The Digital Audio Music List, published by A-R Editions back in 1999), although when I did so it was as Delos DE 3119. (This Delos release is no longer available as a new recording.) It appears that Naxos has picked up the reproduction rights as part of its "American Classics" series, and so we have what is basically a 2003 reissue of material that was recorded over a decade earlier.

As I said in my earlier analysis, "the symphonic parts of this recording are remarkably smooth and clean, with a wide, deep, and spacious soundstage." The violin concerto did then and still does have a bit of a problem with the solo instrument sounding a tad larger and closer up ...