Diamond: Tom Suite / Symphony No. 8 / This Sacred Ground

Featuring

Gerard Schwarz
Erich Parce
Seattle Symphony
Northwest Boychoir
Seattle Girls' Choir
Seattle Symphony Chorale

David Diamond

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Composition History

David Diamond's ballet TOM, based on Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, was originally conceived with e.e. cummings writing the scenario and Lincoln Kirstein approaching Stravinsky, Virgil Thomson, and Paul Bowles for the music.

Notable Performances

Despite interest from Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein, the Suite from the Ballet TOM had to wait 44 years for its first performance, which was conducted by Gerard Schwarz on July 4, 1981.

Composition History

David Diamond dedicated his Symphony No. 8 to his friend and mentor, composer Aaron Copland, on the occasion of Copland's sixtieth birthday.

Composition History

This Sacred Ground, a setting of Lincoln's 'Gettysburg Address,' was commissioned at the wish of conductor Josef Krips, who had memorized the speech as a student in Vienna.

Performer Biography

Gerard Schwarz, the conductor of this album, has been Music Director of the Seattle Symphony since 1985 and has released nearly ninety compact discs with them.

Historical Context

David Diamond and other neo-Romantic American composers like Roy Harris and Samuel Barber were dismissed as 'irrelevant' by figures like Pierre Boulez during a period dominated by post-Webernian serialism.

Composer's Artistic Vision

David Diamond, the composer, believed in a romantically inspired contemporary music, tempered by reinvigorated classical technical formulas, as the way out of creative chaos.