Search - Diamond, Potomac String Quartet :: String Quartets Vol. 2 - String Quartets 2, 9, & 10

More excellent Diamond quartets from Potomac String Qrt

Frank Camm | Northern Virginia | 12/09/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Strong, clean, rhythmic, distinctly American. Tonal with little dissonance. Mainly neoclassical; not nearly as dissonant as his chamber music from the Chicago Chamber Musicians (1995 CD). Reminds me of Walter Piston.



Qrt #2 (1943-44): tr 1: Crisp, transparent, tonal, quietly cheerful. Steady upbeat 4/4 rhythm. Propelled forward. tr 2: Tonal but with a sinewy twist. Quiet, recalling fond memories of times now lost. tr 3: Back on top, confident, striding out in bright, steady strokes. Crisply contrapuntal.



Qrt #9 (1965-68): Brooding, shadowy. Tonal, but stretched against the grain, approaching chromatic. Assertive bursts periodically morph up from this tangled quietude. Bursts are rhythmic, forceful, driven.



Qrt #10 (1966): tr 5: Dry, precise, neoclassical. Crisp rhythm, almost a march. Stretched tonality. tr 6: Subdued reflection jumps up into a spirited prance, then calms down, up again, down, fade.... tr 7: Fugue-like counterpoint with crisp, up-beat rhythm."

The Diamond revival continues!

J Scott Morrison | Middlebury VT, USA | 01/28/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"David Diamond, whom some might want to call our greatest living American composer, is now in his late 80s. He had a bit of a renaissance in the early 1990s with the treasured recordings of some of the orchestral music (and most of the symphonies) by Gerard Schwarz and the Seattle Symphony. Now we seem to be getting a complete traversal of the string quartets by the Potomac Quartet. (Aside: Isn't it amazing how many really wonderful American quartets we seem to have these days? I was blown away last week by a live performance of the American String Quartet and Richard Stoltzman playing the Brahms Clarinet Quintet.) I very much liked the Potomac's release of his 3rd and 8th quartets early last year. And now we come to Volume II, the 2nd, 9th, and 11th quartets. The Second, of course, is from the mid-1940s and is in the style we're familiar with from his famous 'Rounds' for string orchestra. In three movements, it includes a flowing allegro, a grave and tuneful adagio that uses masterful counterpoint to reach several intense climaxes, and a playful, bustling finale that caps it all off.The 9th and 10th quartets are from the 1960s, are relatively short (16 and 10 minutes respectively) and are more densely chromatic, with splendid working out of melodic motives in forward-moving and, how can I say it?, American-sounding, language. Yes, they're American, but Diamond knows his great masters of the quartet literature; more than once I heard a kinship with the late quartets of Beethoven. Both pieces end with extended impressive contrapuntal passages that somehow lift the pieces to new heights. I hesitate to call them masterpieces, but they amply reward repeated listening. The performances are all one could ask for."