A Diamond Jubilee – Songs By David Diamond

We lost one of the great American composers in June of 2005 when David Diamond passed away. However, we have been fortunate to have heard his Symphonies, chamber works and complete String Quartets (TROY504, 540, 613 and 727) on record over the years, yet this is the first CD devoted entirely to his songs, though he wrote nearly 100 of them. The songs range in emotion from the sweetly lyrical and wistfully elegiac to the humorously satirical and ironic, from plaintive innocence to homespun world-weariness, from mysterious enigma to heart-rending poignancy, from compassion with souls in torment to the need for humans to connect with others even though the connection may be painful, and from deceptive quasi-simplicity to unearthly and nearly orchestral passion and power. All but one are in English and encompass the full poetic gamut of human emotion and experience. Soprano Helene Williams and pianist Leonard Lehrman have collaborated on performances in Amsterdam, Paris, Germany, the United States, as well as song recitals on CD. This, their first Albany release, is a wonderful memorial to an important American composer.