Diamond wrote almost one hundred
songs; this is the first CD to be
devoted entirely to a selection
from this output. Albany give no
exact details as to when these performances
were recorded, though the first
paragraph of the booklet contains
the following information: “Originally
planned for release on his 80th
birthday, the recording was finally
edited and remastered in time for
release during his 90th
year ... He did get to hear it ...
just weeks before he died, and told
the performers on the phone: ‘I
liked it very much’”. David
Diamond was born on 9 July 1915
(and died on 13 June 2005), so his
eightieth birthday was in 1995.
The performers’ web
site suggests a date of 1994
for the recording.
Many of the songs recorded on this
CD belong to the 1940s. In style
they reflect something of Diamond’s
French influences – like so many
American composers of his generation
he studied with Nadia Boulanger;
Diamond met Ravel in Paris in 1928,
and became a firm friend of the
Frenchman; his profound admiration
of Ravel was well reflected in Diamond’s
orchestral Elegy in Memory of
Maurice Ravel (1938). Only one
of the songs recorded here has a
French text – though the words were
actually written by the New Zealander
Katharine Mansfield – and this song.
‘Souvent j’ai dit à mon mari’, carries
a dedication to “Darius, Madeleine
& Daniel Milhaud”, which suggests
another of Diamond’s affinities,
both personal and musical. In other
songs, Diamond’s choice of texts
is thoroughly eclectic including
an anonymous seventeenth-century
poem, and texts by, amongst others,
Dylan Thomas, Shelley, Hardy, Melville,
e e cummings, Theodore Roethke and
Gertrude Stein. All the texts are
provided – with just two exceptions
for which permission to reprint
could not be obtained. There’s wit
and humour in songs such as ‘Sister
Jane’ and ‘Homage to Paul Klee’;
a troubling bleakness in ‘My Spirit
Will not Haunt the Mound’ and a
charming pseudo Celtic-folk idiom
in ‘Brigid’s Song’ (with words by
James Joyce). There is barely a
dud amongst these songs – though
I was disappointed by Diamond’s
response to Shelley’s beautiful
lyric ‘Music, when soft voices die’.
This last setting, by the way, is
dedicated to Alec Wilder. Elsewhere,
‘My little Mother’ - text by Katharine
Mansfield again - is dedicated to
that fine song-writer Theodore Chanler;
is there a CD of his songs
out there anywhere? All of these
songs have grace, intelligence and
charm, many have long, attractive
melodic lines, and all are very
obviously the work of a composer
with a real understanding of poetry.
The CD closes with what is surely
one of Diamond’s greatest achievements
as a composer of songs – his setting
of four of the lyrics by Byron which
were gathered under the title of
‘Hebrew Melodies’. Written in 1968
– and dedicated to Leonard Bernstein
on the occasion of his fiftieth
birthday – there is less emphasis
here on Gallic grace and a greater
forcefulness and sharpness of manner,
in an idiom which draws on a different
kind of modernism. Tonality is much
looser, there are some jagged figurations
in the piano writing, some demanding
leaps in the vocal lines, now far
more fragmentary. This is a marvellous
song-cycle, running over twenty
minutes. Anyone who doesn’t know
it is urged to take the opportunity
to make its acquaintance. Now we
need a good recording of Diamond’s
1964 cycle We Two (on Shakespearean
texts).
Williams and Lehrman are an experienced
duo. Lehrman will be known to many
as an authority – the authority
– on Marc Blitzstein. Lehrman also
studied with Boulanger ... as well
as with Bernstein. An experienced
professional – composer, conductor,
operatic coach, academic and pianist
– he is a fine and sympathetic accompanist.
Williams doesn’t, for my tastes,
have the most naturally beautiful
of voices and there are moments
when she struggles, but she brings
to the performance of these songs
real musical intelligence, a natural
performer’s instinct and a marvellous
clarity of diction. One might imagine
better performances of some of these
songs, but that shouldn’t detract
from one’s pleasure in, and admiration
of, what we are here offered. I
am grateful to both performers who,
the booklet notes tell us, were
extensively coached by the composer
in preparing their performances.
Glyn Pursglove
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message received
Helene (Williams Spierman Lehrman)
and especially I want to thank you
for your thoughtful review of our
David Diamond CD. We thought you,
and perhaps your readers, would
like to know that, while we began
work on these songs, choosing and
then coaching them with David Diamond,
in 1994, the actual recording was
made in Roslyn, N.Y., Jan. 16-18,
1995 by Norman Greenspan. The remastering
was done by Da-Hong Seetou in 2005.
This information was in our liner
notes, but was inadvertently omitted
during the many revisions of those
notes underwent. We discovered the
error just a little too late--everything
had already gone to press, though
we were promised that it would appear
in a second printing, if there is
a second printing.
Thank you again.
Sincerely,
Leonard J. Lehrman
Helene Williams
(soprano), Leonard Lehrman (piano) 
