Composers Datebook

In all, the American composer David Diamond wrote 11 Symphonies, spanning some 50 years of his professional career. The last dates from 1991, and the first from 1940, completed after his return from studies in Paris shortly before the outbreak of World War II. Diamond’s first Symphony was premiered on today’s date in 1941 by the New York Philharmonic led by the famous Greek conductor Dimitri Mitropoulos. Despite winning awards and positive comments from fellow composers ranging from Virgil Thomson to Arnold Schoenberg, for years Diamond struggled to make ends meet by playing violin in various New York City theater pit bands. More than one fellowship grant, however, enabled him to live abroad for extended stays, where, he said: “I can make my income last and live extremely well with my own villa and garden at a cost that would provide a hole-in-the-wall, coldwater flat in America . . . There is a spiritual nourishment, too, in that cradle of serious music [and] quiet for concentration that could never be found in an American city.” Defending his more traditional approach, Diamond wrote: “It is my strong feeling that a romantically inspired contemporary music, tempered by reinvigorated classical technical formulas, is the way out of the present period of creativity chaos in music... To me, the romantic spirit in music is important because it is timeless.”