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At the premiere of Quartet No. 10
American University,Washington, D.C.
Diamond Quartets Volume Two
Interviews and notes compiled
Additional information provided by
James R. Heintze and Dr. Richard Crouch:
DAVID DIAMOND, the eminent American
composer, was born in Rochester, New York
on July 9, 1915, the only son of Austrian and
Polish immigrants. His musical talents
revealed themselves very early when he
taught himself to play the violin at the age
of seven and devised a system of violin
notation all his own. From 1927-29, his
family lived with relatives in Cleveland
where he found an important friend and
patron in Andrè de Ribaupierre, a Swiss
musician who gave him formal training in
violin and music theory at the Cleveland
Institute of Music. In 1928, Ribaupierre
introduced him to the great composer
Ravel, who made a lasting impression on
him. When his family moved back to
Rochester, Diamond juggled regular high
school classes with violin and composition
studies at the Eastman School of Music.
When he graduated from high school, he
had already completed over 100 works, all
of which he later discarded as juvenilia.
In 1934, Diamond left Rochester for New
York, where he became a scholarship
student of Roger Sessions at the New
Music School. Around this time, he made
the first of three artistically significant trips
to Paris in the 1930s. There he met Ravel
again and came into contact with composers
Milhaud and Roussel, the conductor
Charles Munch, and writers Andrè Gide
and James Joyce. He would always have a
special place in his heart for French music,
especially that of Ravel, his ideal, whose
music he would describe as “the most
perfect, the most imaginative and the most
moving” of all contemporary music.
During his second and third trips to Paris
(1937-39), Diamond studied composition
with Nadia Boulanger at the American
Conservatory in Fontainebleau. In 1937,
the latter introduced him to Stravinsky,
whose advice and encouragement were
very important to him. In 1940, he
returned to New York as World War II was
spreading through Europe.
In the 1940s, Diamond found it difficult to
make ends meet but managed to produce
some of his best-known works.
Fortunately, he continued to receive
several awards and commissions that
helped sustain him. For two years (1943-
45), he played violin in the weekly Carnegie
Hall radio show Your Hit Parade. It was during
this time that he composed his String
Quartet No. 2, as well as his Rounds for string
orchestra, one of his most popular and
In the 1950s and early 1960s, Diamond
lived and worked in Italy, first in Rome
(1951) and then in Florence where he
settled. Among other things, he left the
states to escape the repressive atmosphere
of the McCarthy era at the time. In
1956 he returned to be with his gravely ill
mother and played violin for a time in the
Candide orchestra under Leonard
Bernstein. In 1965 at the age of 50,
Diamond returned to the United States
on a permanent basis. In 1966-67, he
served as chair of the composition
department at the Manhattan School of
Music; in 1973, after several composer-inresidence
positions, he was appointed
Professor of Composition at the Juilliard
School of Music, where he taught until
1997. In the 1980s and 1990s, he received
more prestigious honors, including the
National Medal of Arts from President
Clinton at the White House (1995).
String Quartet No.2 was begun in New York
in 1943 and finished on February 22, 1944.
It was premiered on April 26, 1961 by the
Kroll Quartet in Capen Hall in Buffalo,
New York. It is in three movements in fastslow-
fast sequence. The contrapuntal
craftsmanship, rhythmic vitality, rich diatonic
harmonic writing, formal logic and
distinctive lyricism that have marked
Diamond's style throughout his long creative
life are all in evidence here. For him,
“a quartet is made of four independent,
contrapuntal lines that relate to each
other thematically, motivically and so forth,”
and String Quartet No. 2 is no exception.
The opening bars provide the primary
thematic thread, with its descending openfifth
intervals. The `flexible' Allegro begins
softly, ends even more softly, and constantly
shifts meters in between. The Adagio is
indeed sad as marked.The closing Allegro
is powerful and intense that picks up
momentum as it races to the end.
Interview with David Diamond
Q: How would you describe your
A: It is a very spirited work. Its lines are
very long, especially in the slow movement.
After the success of Quartet No. 1
composed in one movement, I wanted
to go on to another quartet but this
time compose it in a different form.
Q: The last movement is indeed a virtuoso
A: You know Nicki Berezowsky, who was
the second violinist of the Coolidge
Quartet, always used to say that this
was one of the few American works
whose finale could be called real contrapuntal
writing for string quartet. But
you must not take it too fast. It must be
fast but a very careful fast.
Q: But you have it marked Prestissimo -
half note = 168.This is incredibly fast..
A: Don't pay any attention to that.
Q: Why mark it so fast? Did you ever have
a model on which to base such speed?
A:Well, Beethoven's Rasumovsky quartet
Op. 59, No. 3 Finale: Presto (fugal per
petuum) that goes on so fast could
have been an influence because I loved
it so. I want the finale of this quartet to
Q: What were you doing in Buffalo at this
A: I was giving a series of four lectures on
American music from the standpoint of
composition, from the standpoint of
the audience and from the standpoint
of the history of music. I had been
residing in Italy and they invited me
to come give these lectures.
Q: This quartet is dedicated to Edward
A: Yes. He was a wonderful friend when
he was a young man. For years he
worked at the New Yorker. He was
one of their best editors.
Q: He must have loved your music.
A: He did(!) - not only that he was so
very intelligent in talking about it. He
would give information about me to a
man named Winthrop Seargant who
was also with the New Yorker.This
publicity helped me as I was emerging
as a symphonist, and as a writer of
songs and string quartets.
String Quartet No. 9, completed on June 26,
1968 and composed in commemoration
of Roger Sessions' seventieth birthday,won
the 1972 Walter W.Naumburg Foundation
Award. Like his first quartet of 1940, the
ninth is in one extended movement utilizing
the traditional structural procedures in
non-traditional ways. All principal thematic
materials are heard at the very opening of
the quartet and the two major themes
become the fulfillment of the double
canon, which closes the quartet. Into the
contrapuntal devices are filigreed motival
and thematic references to Sessions' Violin
Interview with David Diamond
Q: Why did you dedicate this quartet to
Roger Sessions for his 70th birthday?
A: First of all I would say that he was my
most important teacher after Nadia
Boulanger. If you have the book The
Correspondence of Roger Sessions, you
will see that our correspondence was
very intimate through the years.We
were just more than teacher and pupil.
We were colleagues and eventually
friends right up until the time he died.
Q: When did you study with him?
A: When I first came to New York in
1934 I began studying with him. So,
I stayed with him until I went to
Boulanger in 1936. After the war
broke out I heeded an official warning
to all Americans to leave France at
once. I then went back to New York
Q: Do you remember a particular piece
A:No, you know I was already pretty
advanced technically. I had already
worked with Boulanger and with
Bernard Rogers. I had a pretty good
craft. Sessions was very pleased with
me. He said that I was the most technically
advanced of all his students. So,
there wasn't much there except to pick
on details. So we studied Beethoven
quartets, Cherubini and all the other
Italian composers of the period.
Q: Is there a particular piece of his that
A: I particularly like his Concertino (1972)
and Divertimenti (1959) for small
orchestra. And of course his very early
The Black Maskers (1923).That is a
fascinating piece for big orchestra.
Q: I don't have any experience playing his
A: It's tough going.The three quartets are
tough going. He had a very strange
career because his music is so hard to
pin yourself to. People say that it's dry
and that they can't get anything from it.
Q: What attracted you to his compositions?
A: Certainly his early music. He wrote his
first string quartet for Mrs. Coolidge,
which was still tonal music. It was after
he got to know Arnold Schoenberg
Q: Throughout this quartet you make great
use of the players trilling skills.
A: Oh yes, people have asked me about
this.That was a fantasy thing. At that
time I was obsessed with those trills.
So, I have a trill quartet!
Q: How did you become so interested with
A: I was studying ornamentation for a
special class at Juilliard and I suddenly
realized that the trill is a very unusual
ornamentation because it can come
from the top and the bottom or you
can have trills with different intervals.
I just decided that I would work on
trills. It makes for many kinds of
special moments, especially in the
String Quartet No. 10, a powerful and
expressive piece, received its premiere in
the Harry A. McDonald Recital Hall
at American University. Diamond began
writing the quartet in May 1966 in New
York during his tenure at the Manhattan
School of Music and completed the work
on August 19, 1966 in Rochester, New
York.The work was commissioned by the
American University, Washington, D.C.
for the dedication ceremony of the
David Lloyd Kreeger Music Building, on
One hears Diamond now composing with
skill and assurance in what may be called
his “second” or late-mature style. One
hears a more lyrically sustained, richly
textured and mildly atonal utterance,
moved and shaped to rhythmic patterns
more vigorous and persistent than those
generally favored by Boulez and
Stockhausen. Despite traces of the innovators'
accents, the idiom is pure Diamond.
What the work says and how it says it add
up to a deeply personal musical statement
in which, though the present is vigorously
acknowledged, the valid past is not wholly
ignored.The latter point finds proof in the
form of the last movement, marked
Doppia fuga (double fugue), whose origins
lie three centuries in the past. [Rockbridge
Concert-Theater Series program notes]
The significance of Quartet No. 10 as a
commemorative piece came into play
once more during the 1980s on the
occasion of the composer's seventieth
birthday.The Juilliard Quartet gave a special
performance on April 15, 1985 at Merkin
Concert Hall in New York City.
Interview with David Diamond
Q: Did you decide that quartet No. 10
would be your final quartet?
A:No, I didn't decide that. I think I had
said everything that I had wanted to
say and then life got to be very complicated.
I wasn't turning out as much
music as I had in the past. I had also
come back from Italy where I had lots
of time to work and now I had to find
a job. It was a hard period for me.
Q: Your quartet No. 10 is dedicated to the
A: Yes,Werner Lywen was a good
friend. He was the concertmaster of
Bernstein's City Center Orchestra
when Bernstein first formed an orchestra
there.We were always together
with the Bernstein's. He had a quartet
in Washington that Mr. Kreeger set up.
Q: You always write so beautifully for the
viola.The end of the second movement
A:Well, I played it for a time. I always
loved the sound of the instrument
but violin was my instrument.When I
played in quartets though, they used to
let me play viola because I had such a
Q: In the opening of third movement, the
violin has a strong melody by itself
where you ask the player to play forte
A: Right. I always liked that kind of sound.
It has a more steely sound.This is my
marking because I want that particular
sound and not the stopped e. It comes,
I suppose, from my knowledge of the
strings in the orchestra.
Q: The double fugue that follows is memorable.
Do you get emotionally involved
A: Oh, yes. I always get emotionally
involved. It is part of my nature as
music is the second part of my nature.
So it was only natural that my music
would express these things. My symphonies
and sonatas are the same way.
Q: What would you like the performer
to know when working through this
A: If they respect my dynamic markings,
everything should be heard. I am very
careful in contrapuntal music, especially
in quartets, that there are different
dynamics so that one hear the different
Q: Mr. Diamond, how would you like to be
A: I don't want to be remembered. I want
my music to be remembered. Why
should I want to be remembered?
I won't know the hundreds or thousands
who may be listening. I want the
music to be what I am remembered by.
Q: And how would you like to have that
A: The way people love it now. The
warmth, which the audience has
come to know through the recordings
of my music. I just hope that continues.
I think it will too. Just as the great
masterworks have proven why they
have lasted, I hope that my music will
have that same viability and that same
ability to sustain itself that's energy
The Potomac String Quartet
In October 2000, thanks to a generous grant from the Aaron Copland Fund for Music,
the Potomac String Quartet embarked on a project of recording all eleven string
quartets written between 1936 and 1968 by the eminent American composer
David Diamond. Their most recent performance of Diamond's Quartets No. 2 &
No. 5 at The Voice of America's 60th anniversary season in Washington, D.C., was
broadcast worldwide. David Diamond's String Quartets, Volume One, on Albany
records, was released to critical acclaim in March 2002.
Violinist GEORGE MARSH has been
a member of the National Symphony
Orchestra since 1979. Mr. Marsh
has performed as soloist with the
National Symphony Orchestra, the
Virginia Chamber Orchestra, the
Catholic University Orchestra, and
several other orchestras in his native
midwest. As a chamber musician, he
is a founding member at the Chamber
Artists of Washington; he has also
performed with the Vaener String Trio,
the New England Piano Quartet,
the Washington Chamber Society, and
the Alexandria Chamber Ensemble.
Recital performances include concerts
at the Phillips Collection, the
Organization of American States, and
the National Gallery of Art in
Washington DC. Mr. Marsh has
received numerous awards, including
first prize in the 1985 Washington
International Bach Competition. He is
a graduate of the University of
Michigan, where he studied with Paul
Makanowitzky. Mr. Marsh can be heard
on recordings of the chamber music of
Erich Wolfgang Korngold, as well as on
recordings of music performed at the
United States Holocaust Memorial
Museum — four volumes of Darkness &
Light. Mr. Marsh plays a 1758 J.B.
Guadagnini, the “ex Joseph Silverstein”.
Violinist SALLY McLAIN received her
Bachelor and Master of Music degrees
with `High Distinction' from Indiana
University, where she studied with and
was assistant to James Buswell. Raised
in Washington DC, Ms. McLain is a
graduate of the DC Youth Orchestra
Program. She has participated in the
Tanglewood Music Center, Bach Aria
Festival and Institute and the New York
String Orchestra. Ms. McLain performs
throughout the Washington DC
area as soloist, chamber musician and
orchestral musician. Solo engagements
have included performances at the
Kennedy Center Terrace Theater, the
National Gallery of Art, the Corcoran
Gallery and Lisner Auditorium. She has
performed chamber music on the
Embassy Series, with National Musical
Arts and the 20th Century Consort.
She frequently performs as an orchestral
musician with the National Symphony
Orchestra and the Eclipse Chamber
Orchestra and served as concertmaster
for the Washington Chamber
Symphony for ten seasons. Ms. McLain
is a member of the Theater Chamber
Players, Leon Fleischer Director.
TSUNA SAKAMOTO, section violist of
the National Symphony Orchestra since
1998, was born in Tokyo, Japan. Before her
arrival in Washington, D.C., she was a
member of the violin section of the San
Antonio Symphony for five years. She has
also served as principal second violinist
with the Richmond Symphony Orchestra
of Indiana, associate concertmaster with
the Mansfield Symphony Orchestra of
Ohio, and assistant principal violist with
the Aspen Chamber Orchestra. In addition
to her duties with the National
Symphony, Ms. Sakamoto is co-principal
violist of the Eclipse Chamber Orchestra.
Ms. Sakamoto is a dedicated educator.
She enjoys teaching at her private
studio and as a part of the NSO Youth
Fellowship program, as well as coaching the
American Youth Symphonic Orchestra.
Ms. Sakamoto studied at the Toho
Academy School of Music, Cincinnati
College, and Ohio State University. Her
viola teacher include Edward Adelson,
Allyson Dawkins, and Heidi Castleman.
Ms. Sakamoto has received violin
instruction from Masumi Ogawa,
Kenji Kobayashi, Naoko Tanaka,
Kurt Sassmannshaus, Dorothy DeLay,
Larry Shapiro, and Michael Davis.
STEVEN HONIGBERG, heralded as a
“sterling cellist” by the Washington Post,
has emerged as one of the outstanding
cellists of his generation. Mr. Honigberg
gave his New York debut recital in Weill
Hall and has since performed throughout
the United States in recital, in
chamber music and as a soloist with
orchestra. A member of the National
Symphony Orchestra, he has been featured
numerous times as soloist with
that ensemble. He won rave reviews
for the 1988 world premiere of David
Ott's Concerto for Two Cellos performed
with the National Symphony Orchestra
and conductor Maestro Rostropovich,
with repeat performances on the
NSO's 1989 & 1994 United States
tours. Mr. Honigberg is also acclaimed
for his explorations of important new
works, such as Lukas Foss' Anne Frank
(1999), Benjamin Lees` Night Spectres
(1999), Robert Stern's Hazkarah
(1998), Robert Starer's Song of Solitude
(1995) & David Diamond's Concert Piece
(1993), written for and premiered by
Steven Honigberg. Mr. Honigberg
graduated from the Juilliard School of
Music with a Master's degree in Music,
where he studied with Leonard Rose
and Channing Robbins. Other mentors
include Pierre Fournier and Karl Fruh.
Voted `Best New Chamber Music
Series' of 1994 by the Washington Post,
Steven Honigberg has been The United
States Holocaust Memorial Museum's
chamber music series director since
its inception. Mr. Honigberg has an
extensive CD recording list, which
includes his latest recording of Ernst
Toch's cello compositions. Mr. Honigberg
also has recorded Ludwig van Beethoven's
complete works for cello & piano; an
album of twentieth-century American
cello works; the chamber music of
Erich Wolfgang Korngold; and recordings
of music performed at the United
States Holocaust Memorial Museum
— four volumes of Darkness & Light.
His recent performances include concerts
at the 1998 Ravinia Festival and
Weill Hall in New York, and a performance
of Berthold Goldschmidt's Cello
Concerto in August 2002 with the Sun
Valley Festival Orchestra, where he has
performed as principal cellist since
1990. Mr. Honigberg performs on the
`Stuart' Stradivarius cello made in 1732.
Charlie Pilzer - Airshow, Springfield,VA
David Diamond String Quartets published by Southern Music Publishing Co. Inc.
This recording is made possible in part by the
generous support of the Aaron Copland Fund for Music.
Recorded St. Lukes Church, McLean, Virginia • March 2001 & October 2001
String Quartet No. 2 (1943-44)
To Edward Stringham In Friendship
I. Allegro Flessibile . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6:09
II. Adagio Mesto . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7:53
III. Allegro Mesto . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5:47
String Quartet No. 9 (1965-68)
To Roger Sessions for his 70th Birthday
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16:13
String Quartet No. 10 (1966)
I. Allegro assai . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5:53
II. Lento . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6:01
III. Adagio - Doppia Fuga . . . . . . . . . . .5:44
Total Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .53:55
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