Search - David [6] Diamond, Roy Harris, Randall Thompson :: American Masters: Harris, Thompson, Diamond

The best Harris Third Available

12/17/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This a great CD. The sound is incredible and the works have been greatly underrated. They deserve a place in e4veryome's collection, not just those interested in American music. There are two Bernstein Harris 3rds readily available at present (not counting the one issued by the NY Philharmonic in one of its 10-CD special editions) and this is the better of the two. The performance is sleeker and more rousing and the sound is more open and inviting. Even the coupling is better: Schuman's 3rd (on DG) is pleasant, but the Diamond and Thompson symphonies offered here will leave you wondering why these works aren't a staple of American orchestras. Highly recommended."

Love It Or Leave It!

jdflynnno | 11/26/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I don't know if this CD is in the top five of all-time American symphonic recordings. Heck, it might be in the top two! All three of these symphonies are great, especially, of course, Harris' Third Symphony. I feared hearing that symphony at one time because I thought it might be overrated. It isn't. And this recording from the 1960s might even be better than Bernstein's later digital recording on DG, as good as that one is. I don't find Thompson's symphony dull as some, and Diamond's symphony is a cut above many (sorry about the pun!). Diamond, in fact, might be one of the most underrated composers ever. I'll put it this way, hoss -- This is All-American music recorded by the All-American team of Bernstein and the NYPO. If you are interested in American symphonic music, to not have purchased this CD is simply un-American!"

Buy this CD while there is yet time

dave.hickey@lmco.com | Downtown San Jose, Ca | 07/15/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Except for the Thompson Symphony, which is duller than dirt, this recording is probably a last opportunity to enjoy two of the great masterpieces of American Classical music. David Diamond's 4th symphony is his most popular, and this recording by his, one time, friend, Leonard Bernstein, is the best one that has ever been done. Gerald Schwartz dragged the tempi intolerably on his recording of the same work, but if it were not for Schwartz, we would have almost nothing of Diamond available. Diamond is the most under-rated of all Amercian composers, and he is the most articulate. The transistion from LP to CD has not been kind to him, to say the least. The Harris third symphony is that composer's masterpiece, and it is a seamless work of perfection, superbly performed by Bernstein and the orchestra. Would that the Thompson had been bypassed for Bernstein's own Symphony No. 1, which was the original companion on LP to the Harris."