{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/3/context.json","id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/iiif/222r49gp6r/manifest","type":"Manifest","label":{"en":["Diamond, David"]},"logo":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/115/original/Boxed_Milken_Center_logo.png?1628711583","metadata":[{"label":{"en":["Preferred Citation"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eDiamond, David. 1998. Interview by Neil W. Levin. Milken Archive Oral History Project. 21 February.\u003c/p\u003e"]}},{"label":{"en":["Publisher"]},"value":{"en":["Milken Family Foundation"]}},{"label":{"en":["Rights Statement"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003e© Milken Family Foundation. Unauthorized use is prohibited. For inquiries, please contact info@milkenarchive.org.\u003c/p\u003e"]}},{"label":{"en":["Agent"]},"value":{"en":["Diamond, David (Composer)","Levin, Neil W. (Interviewer)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Date"]},"value":{"en":["1998-02-21"]}},{"label":{"en":["Coverage"]},"value":{"en":["Rochester, NY (Place of Recording)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Language"]},"value":{"en":["English (Primary)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Description"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eOral history interview with David Diamond focused on his musical background and training, the histories of his works Mizmor l'David (liturgical) and Ahavah (oratorio), and the influence of Judaism on his compositional process. Also encompasses other topics including the influence of Lazare Saminsky, Diamond's composition teachers (including Bernard Rogers and Roger Sessions), the challenges of music publishing, and Diamond's other significant musical works.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://www.milkenarchive.org/artists/view/david-diamond\"\u003eView Artist Page from the Milken Archive\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e"]}},{"label":{"en":["Format"]},"value":{"en":["Beta SP"]}},{"label":{"en":["Subject"]},"value":{"en":["Jews -- Music (Topical Term)","Oral Histories (genre/form)","Saminsky, Lazare, 1882-1959 (Person Or Corporate Body)","Park Avenue Synagogue (Person or Corporate Body)","Putterman, David (Person Or Corporate Body)","Workmen's Circle/Arbeter Ring (Person Or Corporate Body)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Keyword"]},"value":{"en":["Ahavah (oratorio), Bernard Rogers (1893-1968), cantillation, Cleveland Institute of Music, David Putterman, Emma Goldman (1869-1940), Erich Leinsdorf, Ernest Bloch (1880-1959), Frederick Jacobi (1891-1952), Gerard Schwarz, Hochstein School for Music and Dance (Rochester, N.Y.), Howard Mitchell, Kaddish (composition/prayer), Katie Louchheim, Lazare Saminsky, leitmotif, Leonide Massine, Lorne Greene, Mizmor l'David (liturgical/prayer), Music of the Ghetto and the Bible, Nadia Boulanger, National Symphony Orchestra, New York (state) -- Rochester, Park Avenue Synagogue, Roger Sessions, Sam Jaffe (1891-1984), Temple Emanu-El (New York, N.Y.), The Noblest Game (opera), TOM (ballet), Transcontinental Music Publications, Workmen's Circle/Arbeter Ring, Yossele Rosenblatt"]}}],"summary":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eOral history interview with David Diamond focused on his musical background and training, the histories of his works Mizmor l'David (liturgical) and Ahavah (oratorio), and the influence of Judaism on his compositional process. Also encompasses other topics including the influence of Lazare Saminsky, Diamond's composition teachers (including Bernard Rogers and Roger Sessions), the challenges of music publishing, and Diamond's other significant musical works.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://www.milkenarchive.org/artists/view/david-diamond\"\u003eView Artist Page from the Milken Archive\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e"]},"requiredStatement":{"label":{"en":["Attribution"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003e\u0026copy; Milken Family Foundation. Unauthorized use is prohibited. For inquiries, please contact info@milkenarchive.org.\u003c/p\u003e"]}},"provider":[{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/aboutus","type":"Agent","label":{"en":["Lowell Milken Center for Music of American Jewish Experience"]},"homepage":[{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/","type":"Text","label":{"en":["Lowell Milken Center for Music of American Jewish Experience"]},"format":"text/html"}],"logo":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/115/original/Boxed_Milken_Center_logo.png?1628711583","type":"Image"}]}],"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/111/966/small/Diamond.jpg?1621337321","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 1 of 1 - L3450_MA_2005_OH_David_Diamond_Master_2017_Logo.mp4"]},"duration":2746.26133,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/111/966/small/Diamond.jpg?1621337321","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/content/1/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-milken.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/111/966/original/L3450_MA_2005_OH_David_Diamond_Master_2017_Logo.mp4?1619776577","type":"Video","format":"video/mp4","duration":2746.26133,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["AUTO_TRINT_David Diamond [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" LEVIN:  Mr. Diamond, welcome to your home, hometown.\n\nDIAMOND:  Thank you.\n\nLEVIN:  We’re here in Rochester.  I wanted to ask you a little bit about your earliest recollections of Jewish experience, before we talk about the pieces that we’re going to be recording of yours.  You were born in the United States?\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=16.0,34.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/2","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND:  Yes.  Yes.\n\nLEVIN:  And your parents come from Galicia?\n\nDIAMOND:  They come from Galicia, yes.  They both came from an area around the city called Lemberg.  At that time, it was the Austro-Hungarian Empire.  And today, it’s part of the Ukraine — Lvov, it’s called.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=34.0,51.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/3","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND: So, I had Orthodox Jewish parents, and I went to Talmud Torah.  I still, today, can read and write.  And I began being very interested in liturgical synagogue music, because I would go to the synagogue on High Holidays with my parents.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=51.0,69.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/4","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND: But they came over in the early years of the century.  And my mother, of course, was full of those extraordinary fairy tale stories.  You know, of the Moloch ha-movis — the Angel of Death.  She was always dreaming about this Angel of Death that stood at the, at the end of her bed.  Or once, she said a fish came out of the water.  And I said, “Mama, was it a Jewish fish?”  I must have been four or five years old.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=69.0,92.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/5","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND: And she would have these extraordinary tales about the fish that spoke.  And I would ask things like, “Did it speak Yiddish or did it speak Hebrew?”  I was already going to the Beth Yehudah Center, to study here.\n\nLEVIN:  Where?  Where did you grow up?\n\nDIAMOND:  Right here, in Rochester, on the, in what is today almost an entirely Black section.  But it was the ghetto part of Rochester.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=92.0,119.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/6","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND: And I loved it, because we had an Italian family on our left, we had a Polish family on our right, behind a Ukrainian family.  My father spoke three and four different languages.\n\nDIAMOND: And that’s why, when people ask me, “How did I learn so many languages?  Where did I have this talent for languages?”  I say, “Well, you grow up as a kid in that part of a neighborhood, where you have so many different families, you just absorb it.”  And later on, I would get to study the languages in school.\n\nLEVIN:  Did you hear any cantors of note?  Any cantorial music?\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=119.0,153.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/7","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND:  Yossele Rosenblatt.  I remember, he would come very often and sing at Convention Hall, not too far away from, from here.  An extraordinary voice, I remember.  I can hear it right now.  It was a very round sound.  And we had all his recordings at the time.\n\nLEVIN:  In your home?\n\nDIAMOND:  Yes.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=153.0,170.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/8","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" LEVIN:  So, by the time you first wrote for the synagogue, you had absorbed?\n\nDIAMOND:  Oh, very much.  Sure.  Especially on the High Holidays, you know.  You had all those extraordinary cantillations that the cantor would do, and that’s when I first heard all these roulade — this extraordinary way of improvising on it.\n\nDIAMOND: And then, when I got to the library, as a matter of fact, right here in Rochester at the Eastman School, the Sibley Music Library, I began taking out books that they had on Hebraic music.  And one was called Music of the Bible and the Ghetto, by Lazare Saminsky.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=170.0,211.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/9","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND: Then, when I eventually got to New York in the fall of ’34, he is among the first people that I looked up.  Because I had begun, in my early composition days, when I began writing pieces while I was studying here with Bernard Rogers, I began writing short little pieces.  There were eight little Jewish melodies that I wrote first for piano.  Then I orchestrated them, and they were done at Temple B’rith Kodesh with a small orchestra, and Emmanuel Balaban conducting.  And then, I did Hebrew melodies for violin and piano.  These are all juvenilia that are now seeable in the Free Library of Philadelphia.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=211.0,255.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/10","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND: But I was, my ear was very much attuned to the various cantillation modes.  And it could be that, today, even, my music is very — at least critics think — that there is an influence of Hebraic music.  Not to the degree, let’s say, that you get in Ernest Bloch.\n\nDIAMOND: But, for example, in my Kaddish that I wrote several years ago for cello and orchestra, people ask me, “Are those originally Hebraic tunes?”  I said, “Yes.  They are all original tunes.”\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=255.0,286.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/11","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND: And so, there is something that I absorbed.\n\nLEVIN:  So, at the time that you wrote your largest works for the liturgy, such as the commissioned service for Park Avenue, which we’ll talk about…\n\nDIAMOND:  The Mizmor l’david, yes.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=286.0,299.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/12","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" LEVIN:  …you had already done a number of things in synagogue music.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=299.0,304.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/13","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND:  Yes.  As I was mentioning Mr. Saminsky’s name, when I got to New York and I had told him — I was studying at the New Music School with Roger Sessions.  Temple Emmanuel was not too far away from 9 East 59th Street.  So he asked me to come over.  And he became a kind of patron.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=304.0,322.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/14","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND: He knew I was very poor, I was living at the 92nd Street Y.  My parents sent me five dollars a week to live on — five dollars for my room at the Y.  And he knew this, so he would help me out with little checks.  And he introduced me to Frederick Jacobi, who also had written synagogue music at the time.  Mr. Jacobi would help me out with some money.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=322.0,343.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/15","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND: But Mr. Saminsky asked me to write a silent prayer, a Hashkiveinu, a meditation for silent prayer, and music to just anticipate the kaddish.  And I would do many pieces on my own.  I just simply felt I wanted to write more and more of this.  But it was really Mr. Saminsky who got me writing more and more.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=343.0,369.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/16","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" Then, I would say, a good — let’s see, that was ’30s.  Around ’49, Cantor Putterman, at the Park Avenue Synagogue, commissioned me to write the Mizmor l’david, which is a huge piece.  It’s only now, I understand, being prepared for publication by Transcontinental Music.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=369.0,386.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/17","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" LEVIN:  Now, in the Saminsky period there — that’s when Saminsky was the organist at Temple Emmanuel, wasn’t it?\n\nDIAMOND:  No, he wasn’t the organist.  He was the choir director.\n\nLEVIN:  The choir director?\n\nDIAMOND:  Yeah.  You know, he was a pupil of Rimsky-Korsakov?  And he came to the, to the United States very early, I think, around the early ‘20s.  And I was never certain how he got that position at Temple Emmanuel.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=386.0,409.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/18","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND: He married an extraordinary woman named Lillian Morgan.  A remarkable poet.  And set some of her poetry — Litanies of Women, I think, is one of the great, great pieces.\n\nDIAMOND: Pity we don’t hear Saminsky’s music.  It’s extraordinary.\n\nLEVIN:  We’re going to be recording some it…\n\nDIAMOND:  Oh, good.\n\nLEVIN:  …for this project.  In fact, there are two or three operas that I haven’t…\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=409.0,432.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/19","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND:  Jephta’s Daughter?\n\nLEVIN:  Well, there’s another, there’s Jephta’s Daughter.  There’s another one that’s, that’s just a manuscript.\n\nDIAMOND:  The Galliarda of the Plague, or The Merry Plague.\n\nLEVIN:  And then there are several symphonies.\n\nDIAMOND:  Oh, The Symphony of the Seas — I think it’s golden.  There’s a Symphony of Mountains.  They’re remarkable.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=432.0,446.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/20","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" LEVIN:  Those are Judaically related, I think, to the Fifth Symphony.  But I’m not sure if they’re to the Fifth there.\n\nDIAMOND:  I don’t know a No. 5, but I do know the, all the pieces that came up to about 1930.  Let’s see, there was one, something about the moon, which Toscanini had done.  Then, there’s a great piece he wrote for Uxter called Alsonia, about the early Italy.\n\nBut it’s a pity we don’t hear his music.  I’m glad you’re going to be…\n\nLEVIN:  We’re going to be recording some synagogue music, some lieder…\n\nDIAMOND:  Oh, that’s great.\n\nLEVIN:  He wrote some lieder that’s quite interesting.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=446.0,478.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/21","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND:  I used to play his Hebrew Rhapsody for violin and piano.  That’s a beautiful piece.\n\nLEVIN:  Yeah.  As a matter of fact, that’s also on our recording list. So, you actually knew Saminsky?  I mean…\n\nDIAMOND:  Very well.\n\nLEVIN:  On the first hand, where you mentioned Jacobi.\n\nDIAMOND:  Very well.\n\nLEVIN:  What influence did Jacobi have on you?\n\nDIAMOND:  I would say not as strong as Saminsky.  I heard his Litanies of Women here, at the Eastman School.  And it made such a deep impression on me that I asked to see more of his wife’s poetry.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=478.0,510.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/22","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND: And I wrote a piece called Ashen Pages for the same kind of instrumentation.  It’s very influenced by Saminsky’s Litanies of Women. That also, I’d put away, but…\n\nLEVIN:  At that time, Jacobi was living in, was teaching at Juilliard?\n\nDIAMOND:  He was at Juilliard at that time, the old school.\n\nLEVIN:  The old one, yeah.\n\nDIAMOND:  Yes.  And he was supporting me.  He got a relative, I think his name was Glazer, who also sent me a check weekly until I was able to find some work.  This was Depression years, remember.\n\nLEVIN:  Did you ever hear, know of any of Jacobi’s music?\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=510.0,544.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/23","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND:  Oh, yes.  The Cello Concerto, sure.\n\nLEVIN:  Now, the Cello Concerto is something that we’re also…\n\nDIAMOND:  Very Hebraic. Absolutely beautiful.  And then, of course, his service, sacred service.  Then his string quartets.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=544.0,558.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/24","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND: He used to come to Rochester quite often.  Howard Hansen used to invite him and his wife, Irene, to perform his music.\n\nLEVIN:  You said Jacobi at that time, in those years, was a well-regarded, not necessarily in Jewish circles, but as an American composer?\n\nDIAMOND:  Well, he was considered among, let’s say, the ten important composers.  Because he had also a connection with Ernest Bloch.\n\nDIAMOND: See, my teacher, Roger Sessions, and my teacher here, before Sessions, Bernard Rogers, were all students of Ernest Bloch in Cleveland.  And so, there was that connection.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=558.0,596.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/25","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND: Then, when I would go to Cleveland — ‘cause our relatives lived there.  I remember one summer, my mother, she would immediately, so I didn’t give up on my violin practice, she enrolled me at the Cleveland Institute.  We stayed until quite late in the fall.  And I think this was either ‘24 — yes.  The latter part of ’24.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=596.0,619.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/26","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND: And my teacher, Mr. Derebicker (?), one day said, “David” — I had a huge hand, like this, same size when I was about ten or nine.  It was just this big lop, as my mother would call it.  And Mr. Derebicker said, “I think you should learn how to play the viola, too.  Because you have a large hand.  It would be good for you to play the viola, in case you want to play in the orchestra.  We can’t all be violinists.”\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=619.0,641.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/27","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND: So, and suddenly, he said, “Go up to” — this is the Cleveland Institute — he said, “Go up to the third floor, in the old building on Euclid Avenue.”  The orchestra rehearsed up there.  And I came up and I already heard this music, which I immediately fell in love with.  And I couldn’t wait to sit down at a stand, you know.  And so, I waited until it stopped.\n\nDIAMOND: And then, this man, with his piercing, Picasso eyes came up to me and said, “Boychick, where do you want to sit?”  So — with sort of a French accent, mixed-up.  And this was Ernest Bloch.  And so, he put me in the second desk violas.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=641.0,678.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/28","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND: And what do you think the piece was that he was reading through?  The Concerto Grosso.  This was it.  A run-through it, just.\n\nDIAMOND: And then, his daughter, Susannah, was there at the time, later, when I got to know her well, because she taught, too, at the school in New York that I was at.  She said, “David, you know, you were there at a very important time.  Father…” — that was a run-through of The Concerto Grosso.\n\nLEVIN:  And actually, you’re telling me that Jacobi was somewhere in that, in that league, and if you’d name ten composers — I mean…\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=678.0,706.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/29","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND:  I can tell you right now that Frederick Jacobi had a big reputation.  It was as big as, I would say, Randall Thompson.  I mean, I would put him — because Randall Thompson’s name was a very big name, in those years.  I would say Piston, Thompson, Jacobi — if you look up any of the books…\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=706.0,727.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/30","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" LEVIN:  I’m asking for a reason.  Because Jabobi, unlike the others, some of the others you mentioned, unlike Bloch, was born in America, was born in San Francisco.\n\nDIAMOND:  That’s right.\n\nLEVIN:  And yet, that name is well-forgotten now.\n\nDIAMOND:  Completely, pretty much.  And there, again, is my old lamentation.  I blame everything on performers.  There’s an indifference, with a big capital I.  It goes on even today, you know.  It’s, you don’t know why they don’t interest themselves now.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=727.0,756.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/31","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND: There were several quartets — I won’t mention names.  But there were several quartets that were in residence here at the Eastman School.  The years that I lived here.  I would say, “Why don’t you play the Second String Quartet of Frederick Jacobi?  It’s a wonderful work.”\n\nThe year that Jacques Gordon was here — he had the Gordon String Quartet — Jacques used to play Jacobi, but then, he had done so in New York.  And then, when he was on the faculty here, he naturally repeated works.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=756.0,782.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/32","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND: But then, after Fred’s death, and then, when his wife, Irene, died….  Howard Hansen used to invite them both to perform his music here.\n\nDIAMOND: But I’m in touch with his son, Fritz.  And so, we’re trying to do something about stimulating an interest.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=782.0,798.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/33","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" LEVIN:  Well, that’s good.  I’ll talk to you about that, then, because there are just some missing links here.  For example, the records show, of his publisher, that there was a piece written in 1948, I think — roughly ’48 — commissioned for the — and performed, according to those records — a choral piece, I guess, at the Jewish Theological Seminary, where I’m a professor, for the commencement.  But there’s no documentation of it at the Seminary.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=798.0,830.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/34","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND:  Do you remember the name of it?\n\nLEVIN:  Well, I hope to find out.  It’s a choral piece.\n\nDIAMOND:  I’d very interested in that, because, outside of his synagogue music, I — would this be a secular work?\n\nLEVIN:  It’s not clear.  It could have been a secular…\n\nDIAMOND:  I see.\n\nLEVIN:  …Jewish, a Hebrew work or, you know, because it was for 1948…\n\nDIAMOND:  I’d be very interested to know what that is.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=830.0,846.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/35","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" LEVIN:  Then there’s the Hagiografia.\n\nDIAMOND:   That was done here, as a matter of fact, with his wife, yes.\n\nLEVIN:  That we’re recording. Now, some of the pieces that you wrote for the synagogue were performed at Temple Emmanuel?\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=846.0,859.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/36","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND:  He used them in regular services, yes.  Constantly.  I, I wouldn’t doubt that, even today, whoever is there today, probably they’re in the files, and maybe, maybe they’re even still used.  They were, I don’t know whether they were ever published.  I don’t think so.\n\nLEVIN:  Today, I don’t know.  Their archives — I mean, now, it’s a different kind of thing altogether at Emmanuel. It’s very hard to….  I mean, for example, did you know Moshe Rudinoff?\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=859.0,884.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/37","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND:  Oh, sure, sure.\n\nLEVIN:  Now, he had some connection with Emmanuel.\n\nDIAMOND:  Oh, absolutely.\n\nLEVIN:  And we can’t seem to find any… he also came from San Francisco, or taught at San Francisco at one time.\n\nDIAMOND:  I think so.  Yes.\n\nLEVIN:  And we can’t find seem to find any, any documentation there.\n\nDIAMOND:  On Rudinoff?\n\nLEVIN:  Yeah.\n\nDIAMOND:  That is a shame.  That’s a shame.  Maybe the Park Avenue Synagogue has something on him.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=884.0,904.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/38","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" LEVIN:  No, I don’t know…\n\nDIAMOND:  I think he…\n\nLEVIN:  It would be more likely Emmanuel.  It doesn’t mean it’s not there.  It just means that there’s not much interest in, in…\n\nDIAMOND:  Well, sometimes, people who worked at the Temple Emmanuel would go over and work at the Park Avenue, or some of the other, the synagogues that I know that — recently sections of my Mizmor l’david were done at several synagogues.  And I found out where Emmanuel Ax was, you know, because he had rehearsed the choir for the Mizmor l’david at the Park Avenue Synagogue.\n\nLEVIN:  Emmanuel Ax?\n\nDIAMOND:  Yeah.  Not Emmanuel Ax — Harold Aks.  Spelled A-K-S.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=904.0,944.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/39","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" LEVIN:  Now, tell me about the steps leading up to the commission of the service at Park Avenue.  That was in 1949?\n\nDIAMOND:  I would say that’s right, yes.\n\nLEVIN:  Approximately.  What were you doing in general — I mean, outside the parochial perimeters of Judaic relatedness?  I mean, what were you doing?  Were you teaching — were you, in 1948, ’49?\n\nDIAMOND:  ’49 — no.  Well, I was teaching privately.  I had some wonderful students — William Flanagan and Edward Lewis.  Many who studied privately with me.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=944.0,981.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/40","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND: It was hard to find a job in an institution at that time.  Hansen, of course, because I had quit the school, there was no possibility of being brought to teach here, so that was out.  But I enjoyed teaching privately.  I had a studio on Hudson Street.\n\nLEVIN:  In New York?\n\nDIAMOND:  In New York.  And to make a living, I would play in — let’s see — in ’45, I had written music for the Margaret Webster production of The Tempest.  And so, I had money saved up from that — it ran quite a long time.  And when money got low, Leonard Bernstein would say, “Why don’t you play in Wonderful Town?  Or why don’t you play in Candide?”  Or this — I would always go into a Bernstein show.  Because I kept up my violin playing.  And composing a lot.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=981.0,1027.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/41","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND: I wrote the Third and Fourth Symphonies during the ‘40s, 1945.  And many — Romeo and Juliet music in ’47.  So I was constantly composing, all the time.\n\nLEVIN:  In other words, I’m trying to place this in context of your — I hate the word “career,” when it comes to living artists, but in terms of your work.  So, you just told me you’ve written — had written — in that time frame some major works.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=1027.0,1057.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/42","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND:  Oh, yes.  And Putterman, the cantor at the Park Avenue Synagogue, had known my music.  As a matter of fact, when he first called me, he told me that he had known that I had written pieces for Mr. Saminsky.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=1057.0,1070.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/43","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND: And so, the first thing he offered me was to write a Ma Tovu for one of his — he asked several composers.  It’s all these pieces that he commissioned for a special anthology was brought out by Schirmer.  I wrote another Ma Tovu for the Mizmor l’david.  But this was a Ma Tovu for that anthology, which I remember it had a blue cover.  And Schirmer brought it out.  I forget who, what publisher now is taking it over.  Maybe Transcontinental?\n\nLEVIN:  Transcontinental, yeah.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=1070.0,1096.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/44","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND:  Yeah.  And so, I wrote that little Ma Tovu.  And he was very impressed with that.  And that’s, as a result of that, I guess he looked up some of the other pieces that I had done at Temple Emmanuel.  I forget who had brought it.  Maybe Mr. Aks brought it to him.\n\nDIAMOND: And he said, “I would like you to write an entire Friday evening service.”\n\nDIAMOND: And so, I got busy studying the, the different sections.  He wanted a complete service. What’s her name — Tischler — the head of Transcontinental?\n\nLEVIN:  Now?\n\nDIAMOND:  Yes.\n\nLEVIN:  Tischler.\n\nDIAMOND:  Yes.  She is preparing, now, the, the work for publication.  So we’ll finally have it all.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=1096.0,1135.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/45","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" LEVIN:  So, roughly how long did you take to write the Mizmor l’david?\n\nDIAMOND:  I would say about six months.\n\nLEVIN:  And that was with chorus?\n\nDIAMOND:  Chorus, the cantor soloist.  Mr. Putterman, Cantor Putterman, wanted very special sections for himself.\n\nLEVIN:  And so, he was the soloist…\n\nDIAMOND:  That’s right.\n\nLEVIN: …at the premiere of it.  And for organ.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=1135.0,1157.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/46","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND:  Organ.  Yes.  I was eventually going to orchestrate it, because I loved the Avodat Hakodesh of Bloch.  And I may yet, you know, if have…\n\nLEVIN:  You haven’t orchestrated it?\n\nDIAMOND:  No.  For the simple reason that you want to know where two or three performances — it’s a big undertaking.  I thought maybe, after I had written Ahavah, that, as a result of those orchestras that had played it, I — Leinsdorf was one of the conductors who conducted a performance of Ahavah.  I thought Barry would certainly want to perform the Mizmor l’david when I orchestrated it, but I couldn’t pin him down.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=1157.0,1195.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/47","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND: You know, to orchestrate a work of that length, this is like orchestrating an opera.  It’s not as long as that, but it’s close to an hour, if not more.\n\nLEVIN:  Now, did Putterman discuss with you modalities that he wanted to be traditional in the service, or was it totally free composition?\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=1195.0,1217.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/48","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND:  As a matter of fact, it wasn’t a discussion.  When he asked me to come to meet him, I remember, before I could say three words, he was already praising the pieces of mine that he had known that I’d written for Temple Emmanuel.  And he had known a few other pieces where I had used the cantillation, biblical cantillation.  So he knew that — and when he knew that I had studied Lazare Saminsky’s book, Music of the Bible and the Ghetto, and the Jadassohn (?), and I had looked up a lot of Lewandowski pieces — Lahan Algassi’s (?) — you know, all those composers of France — all the Jewish composers.  Then he knew that I, I was able to do it.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=1217.0,1259.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/49","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND: But as I finished section by section, I did it in continuity.  I felt it was the only way to do it.  And it’s cyclically — every section is cyclically related.  So that from the opening meditation for organ alone right through to the final organ, there’s a real arch line.  So the piece has a structure.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=1259.0,1277.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/50","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND: And that’s why I like the Bloch.  I think it could work, as a concert piece.\n\nLEVIN:  It does.  I mean, in fact, it only works, it’s only done, unfortunately, as a concert piece today.\n\nDIAMOND:  Yes.\n\nLEVIN:  There’s no, I don’t even think there are any — there may be a rare case of a Reform temple that uses even one section of it in an actual service anymore.  They did.  I mean, I remember when they did with organ, but today, it’s strictly a concert work.  Which is why I was asking about the orchestration of it.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=1277.0,1305.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/51","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" LEVIN: But you talk about the arch, the architectural kind of togetherness of the piece.  What about motivic?\n\nDIAMOND:  All connected.  Everything.  Leitmotifs.  They all are.  And transformed.  I mean, this is, even in my, my symphonies or sonatas or string quartets, this is a technique that I, which certainly is a, is a result of my wonderful studies with Roger Sessions, who was a pupil of Ernest Bloch.  And you know what a great teacher Bloch was, and so was Sessions.  And of course, Boulanger, whom I studied with after, she was even more remarkable in the sense.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=1305.0,1344.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/52","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND: So, the Mizmor l’david has all that security of form.  So that I don’t, I don’t like it when pieces of it are done.  The original publisher who brought out nine sections of it — Mills.  When they were doing that, and there were different synagogues that performed these singles, I was very upset by that.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=1344.0,1364.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/53","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND: And that’s why I asked Mrs. Tischler to please not bring out separate sections — to, to have it performed only as a….  She said, “Well, that’s not feasible economically.”\n\nLEVIN:  And unfortunately, that’s true.\n\nDIAMOND:  But, I said, “In that case, just do certain sections.”  But in general, it should be from beginning to end.  In continuity.\n\nDIAMOND: So, I think it’s that way with the Bloch Avodat Hakodesh.  It’s so wonderfully integrated.  It’s such a masterpiece of structure.  Let alone the spiritual.  I mean, that Ma Tovu, you know, is one of the — it’s like listening to Montverde in our time, it’s so great.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=1364.0,1399.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/54","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" LEVIN:  What about traditional — well, first of all, melodies?  Did you, at any point in the service, make use of any preexisting traditional melody and transform it in any way?\n\nDIAMOND:  No.  But in the Kaddish I worked very carefully.  For one, I loved Ravel’s setting of the Kaddish.  He had studied the, the traditional one before he wrote his own.  And the simplicity of his harmonization and the cantillation that he uses — I still think it’s one of his great masterpieces, vocal masterpieces.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=1399.0,1432.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/55","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND: And I studied the Ravel for a while to see how he approached it and the shaping of it, really.  The high notes, the low notes.  But basically, I, I wanted it to be the most expressive of all the sections in the work that the cantor sang alone.\n\nLEVIN:  Would you say that you approached this piece particularly in terms of harmonic language as David Diamond the composer generally, or did you leave aside any of your harmonic language that you would have used different ways?\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=1432.0,1470.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/56","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND:  You mean the more, the more, let’s say, dissonant, or the more, the more…\n\nLEVIN:  No, well, were you deliberately more conservative in any way here?\n\nDIAMOND:  Oh, no.  I didn’t, I didn’t do anything to write down to the level of what — Cantor Putterman never said, “I want this; be careful not too, not too many dissonants.”  He never said anything like that.  He just said, “I love the Ma Tovu.  I love your other pieces.  But write a through composed piece.”  I said, “That’s exactly what I want to do.”\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=1470.0,1506.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/57","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND: And I began giving him sketches.  And I would work out all the thematic and motivic ideas.  And then I would think them over and then I would begin to organize the structure of the piece.  So when I began to write in continuity, even the organ solos alone are all very much, I would say, connected and organized as fabric which goes through the whole piece.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=1506.0,1524.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/58","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND: That’s why, to me, it, if I have the strength someday to get it orchestrated, I think it, it would work very well, because of these sections for the organ alone that could be quite beautiful for the orchestra.\n\nLEVIN:  Would you say that — not that the two are mutually exclusive — but would you say that the primary, the conception is a work for worship?\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=1524.0,1545.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/59","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND:  Oh, oh, yes.  I, I’ve heard it in other synagogues.  It, it definitely works as the service.  As part of the service.  It certainly does work very well.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=1545.0,1560.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/60","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND: I wish they would do it all entirely.  They usually pick six or seven, and, and do that.  But I’ve attended some of those services, and yes — it, the choirs, for the limited time that they have to rehearse, have no troubles with, with the chordal structures.  It all seems very natural for them to sing it.\n\nLEVIN:  Now, tell me about Ahavah.\n\nDIAMOND:  Yes.  That was, I remember, I was living in Italy at that time.  I think that was in the ‘50s.  And it was the, the Jewish Tercentenary Years, I think.  And I cannot remember the people who first wrote.  I have all the correspondence.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=1560.0,1604.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/61","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND: But I was so excited by being asked to write a work for that, that I immediately began thinking, what can I do?  You know.\n\nLEVIN:  Who, who asked you to write the work?\n\nDIAMOND:  This is what I can’t remember.\n\nLEVIN:  Well, it was, the Tercentennial was 1954.\n\nDIAMOND:  Yeah.\n\nLEVIN:  Does that sound right?\n\nDIAMOND:  That’s right.  I can’t remember.  I have, I have the letters, if you — I can look them up.  I have everything in a file.  I could let you know it sometime.\n\nLEVIN:  So…\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=1604.0,1628.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/62","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND:  And the moment we agreed on how much it would be, the moment I knew that there would be two orchestras that would be involved, I suddenly realized that I didn’t want to write just an orchestral piece.  A large — they wanted a large orchestral piece.  But I wanted to write a work where there might be narration.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=1628.0,1651.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/63","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND: So, I got the idea that I would have a kind of spokesman.  And I thought, well, Hillel would be the man.  Jeremiah would be somebody.  So I began reviewing all the texts that I could get my hands on of Hillel’s writing, and I took sections from the Old Testament.  And then I wrote my own text.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=1651.0,1678.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/64","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND: And the narrator uses it right through the work.  So it’s a work, really, for narrator and orchestra.\n\nLEVIN:  Narrator and orchestra.  No, no musical soloists.\n\nDIAMOND:  No.\n\nLEVIN:  And about how long is it?\n\nDIAMOND:  Oh, it’s close to, I would say, a good half hour.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=1678.0,1694.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/65","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" LEVIN:  And it’s one, it’s a single…\n\nDIAMOND:  It’s a — well, no.  It’s in, it runs into three, four movements.  Yes.\n\nLEVIN:  Four movements.\n\nDIAMOND:  Four movements, yes.\n\nLEVIN:  And the text is all yours?\n\nDIAMOND:  All mine, except for the, the words that I’ve taken out either of the Old Testament, or I even took, let’s say, at one point I have some Rabbi Akiva, I have — oh, that wonderful Israeli poet.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=1694.0,1725.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/66","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" LEVIN:  Was it Bialik?\n\nDIAMOND:  Bialik, yeah.  Bialik, I, I have different quotations from the, from the different poets in it.  Rachel — I have a, I took a couple of lines from Rachel’s poetry.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=1725.0,1737.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/67","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" LEVIN:  The Israeli poet.\n\nDIAMOND:  That’s right.\n\nLEVIN:  The name, Blaustein.\n\nDIAMOND:  Blaustein.\n\nLEVIN: That was performed…\n\nDIAMOND: First performed by, I think it was Erich Leinsdorf  here with Sam Jaffe as the narrator, the actor Sam Jaffe. Then it was done in Washington with the National Symphony, Howard Mitchell conducting and Lorne Greene, who — I don’t know whether he’s still living, but he was, he became famous on T.V., as sort of a, in those cowboy things.  But Lorne Greene was the narrator, with, with Howard Mitchell.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=1737.0,1781.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/68","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND: Unfortunately, I couldn’t get to America.  I was still living in Italy.  I couldn’t get there for either, but my parents and my mother and my sister did go down for the Washington one.  Of course, they were here when Leinsdorf did it.\n\nLEVIN:  Has it been performed since?\n\nDIAMOND:  No, but Gerard Schwartz is thinking very seriously of adding it to some of the recordings that he’s done.  He recorded my setting of The Gettysburg Address on the, I think the third of the CDs, the Dulles CDs, and now, he would like to do it.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=1781.0,1807.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/69","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" LEVIN:  I have to tell you this.  This has nothing to do with the Judaically related piece, but I still love your, the Whitman.  Some Whitman text.  Didn’t you at one…\n\nDIAMOND:  Oh, it was, with, the song…\n\nLEVIN:  Manhattan School of Music, their opening of the new building?\n\nDIAMOND:  Oh, yes.  The…\n\nLEVIN:  It must have been around 1970, ’69?\n\nDIAMOND:  Yes, that was, for the first movement, it was John Masefield to music.  And then, it was the orchestral, the orchestral movement for the second movement, and then, the third was Henry Longfellow’s translation of St. Theresa of Avila’s poetry.\n\nLEVIN:  There was no Whitman there?\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=1807.0,1845.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/70","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND:  No, no Whitman.  But I did set a Whitman song called How It Was With Them, for voice and piano.\n\nLEVIN:  Now, with Ahavah, that hasn’t been recorded yet, as we know.  But…\n\nDIAMOND:  No.  But it will be, if Schwartz gets ready to…\n\nLEVIN:  Well, I’ll be talking with Schwartz about that.  That requires, that’s a dramatic narration of a…\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=1845.0,1867.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/71","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND:  It needs an actor.  It needs, it just can’t be spoken.  It’s a highly emotional text, and there are direct quotes.\n\nLEVIN:  Where did you get the title?\n\nDIAMOND:  Ahavah?  Brotherhood.  To me, that’s the, the big thing that I still believe should happen in this difficult world of ours.  That without brotherhood, there’s nothing.  So, the whole, the whole text is arranged, so to speak, about that concept of — just as for Beethoven, it was that, you see.  And so, I wanted to write a work for the Jewish communities and for all communities in which that’s…\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=1867.0,1906.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/72","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" LEVIN:  What do you think of the situation today with regard to, with relation to the era of at least a Park Avenue type of commission of a piece of yours and other — as you know, you’re one among many composers who were commissioned by Putterman to write serious works for the synagogue for worship.  That’s no longer happening today, really.  And…\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=1906.0,1933.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/73","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND:  No.  I hear from time to time from certain synagogues.  And then they ask about Mizmor l’david, and I warn them.  I say, “Look — if you have a very small choir, it’s not going to work.  I need at least so many basses, so many tenors, sopranos and altos.  If you don’t have that many, and a really very professional organist, it’s not going to be possible.”\n\nDIAMOND: So, when they found how demanding the piece is, then, naturally, they cancel out.  There was supposed to have been a performance in Akron, Ohio in March, but they just didn’t have the money to put it up.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=1933.0,1969.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/74","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" LEVIN:  The direction of expectations, in terms of serious creativity, musically, in the synagogue, has changed a lot since 1949, since 1959.\n\nDIAMOND:  Oh, I imagine so, yes.\n\nLEVIN:  And I don’t know what your reactions are to that.  I mean in terms of the level of what one would hear in even major congregations musically today is quite different from…\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=1969.0,1987.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/75","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND:  Well, I think I was rather lucky, because the different synagogues that have asked me about the music — the Mizmor l’david— they were not always in New York.  But the fact that they wanted to perform sections of it showed me that they are still interested in Jewish composers who have written for the synagogue.  So I have not noticed anything going down.  But then, I don’t know that many synagogues now.  I just don’t know where they are.\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=1987.0,2018.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/76","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND: Mrs. Tischler tells me that there have been a lot of requests for sections of the Mizmor l’david, so finally, she’s doing something about it.\n\nDIAMOND: You see, we had troubles about getting the copyright away, and we’re still, and she’s still having trouble.  Because it was originally published by Mills, and they only got up to number nine.  And then, Arthur Cohen, who was there, left, went to Carl Fisher.  And there was a Mr. Warrenberg there, who just screwed everything up.  He could…\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=2018.0,2049.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/77","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" LEVIN:  I remember him.  Norman Warrenberg.\n\nDIAMOND:  Yes.  He couldn’t find anything.  He didn’t know where my manuscript was, he couldn’t find where the six or seven copies that they had.  It was a nightmare, and we had a terrible argument.\n\nDIAMOND: And from that time on, I just decided to forget about it, because Arthur Cohen didn’t know what to do about it.  He called him.  He said — poor man.  He died, you know, recently.\n\nLEVIN:  He just died the other day, didn’t he?\n\nDIAMOND:  Yes.  Sunday.  Last Sunday.\n\nLEVIN:  Yeah.\n\nDIAMOND:  So it was one of those damned situations where I said, there’s nothing I can do.  But if one day, Gerard Schwartz wants to perform this, I will orchestrate it, no matter what.  And we’ll work something out about the Mills copyright.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=2049.0,2089.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/78","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND: But now I understand Mrs. Tischler has done something, and so they’ve got the copyright away.\n\nLEVIN:  Tell me about — going back, before that, about your experience in Germany during the Nazi era.\n\nDIAMOND:  Oh, that summer of 1936.\n\nLEVIN:  You were living…\n\nDIAMOND:  I was, I had been sent to Paris to meet with the Russian choreographer, Leonid Massine, because I had done a ballet with E.E. Cummings on Uncle Tom’s Cabin.  And Cummings’ patrons put up the money to send me there to meet with Massine and finish the work there.  And while I was there, I thought I would go to see Boulanger about possibly studying with her for next year.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=2089.0,2132.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/79","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND: So, while I was studying there, a friend of mine said, “You know, you like sports a lot, especially racing.”  Because when I was a kid, I loved taking part in relay races and all that stuff, you know, that kids like.  And he said, “Why don’t join me, and we’ll go together?”\n\nDIAMOND: The Spanish Civil War was on, and there was a young man who was in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, and so, he joined us.  And we all went, and we mainly wanted to see Jesse Owens.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=2132.0,2159.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/80","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND: Because, of course, we were — I belonged to the P.R. Degator Club (?) at that time, Ellie Siegmeister and I, we were all part of — my parents were socialists.  There was a period where you, who wasn’t a socialist?  Most Jewish people who came from Europe were from socialist families.\n\nDIAMOND: And Emma Goldman used to come to the house when I was a little, little kid.  She was, my mother would make dresses for her, because her sister, Elena, lived down on Joseph Avenue here, off Holsey Street.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=2159.0,2188.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/81","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" LEVIN:  Have you see the — Ragtime?\n\nDIAMOND:  Yes.\n\nLEVIN:  You know, most people don’t realize that that’s Emma Goldman.\n\nDIAMOND:  Of course.  Well, in the picture, you know, that Reds — did you see that?\n\nLEVIN:  Of course.  Everybody saw that one, too.\n\nDIAMOND:  There, there, Maureen did a very good job.\n\nLEVIN:  Were your parents Arbeter Ring — Workmen’s Circle?\n\nDIAMOND:  Oh, and how.  The Arbeter Ring, all the time.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=2188.0,2206.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/82","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" LEVIN:  We’ll come back to that in a moment.  But anyway, tell me — so, this was, this little excursion you were making out there.\n\nDIAMOND:  So we went to — by the way, remind me to tell you about Finegam (?) in Paris.  That very summer, you know, was an extraordinary time.\n\nDIAMOND: Now, who didn’t you meet at the Café Dome, you know?  It was the place.\n\nDIAMOND: But we went, we left for Berlin, and we got there, and were put up at a terrible, terrible hotel.  It was in the Fasanenstrasse, I think it was called.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=2206.0,2239.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/83","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND: And one day, we were walking in the street — this is after the day that Jesse Owen ran.  I remember how horrified I was, because he came and the mob was shouting.  It was very exciting.  And he really ran like a whippet.  It was unbelievable.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=2239.0,2260.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/84","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND: But there was Hitler in the box — I never forgot him — jumping up and down and screaming bloody murder.  And I didn’t know what he was screaming, because you couldn’t hear him.  You know, you just heard the crowds.  But then, I heard, later, in the, through the newspapers, that he was furious that an American Negro should have won.  You see, he was just furious about this.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=2260.0,2276.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/85","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND: Then, on the way back, when we were going to find a place to have visversten or something — I remember we all wanted to have some wonderful beer and visversten.  We saw about six or seven Orthodox Jews with long beards with the yellow star.  It’s the first time I had seen that yellow star pinned to their clothes.  And they were tied, one to the other, and were being led by, like animals, by some Gestapo man.  I guess he looked like a butsyet.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=2276.0,2310.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/86","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND: Well, I was so appalled that I just froze.  You see, I had not known.\n\nDIAMOND: Then, when I began asking, later on in the evening, and then, when I got back to Paris, we began to hear more and more about what was going on.  Then I began hearing about the Jewish composers that were leaving.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=2310.0,2327.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/87","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND: And about this time, Schöenberg had already, I think, arrived in Paris a little earlier, as a matter of fact.  Because he arrived in America in ’34.  So he had gotten out.  Hindemith and his wife were already in Switzerland.  Bruno Alter was on his way out.  And then, I heard more and more, and then I knew what was ahead of us.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=2327.0,2348.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/88","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" LEVIN:  The secular side of your, of Jewish influence, which — who knows? — had an impact on the religious side as well, in terms of your composition, subconsciously or in any number of ways.  That secular side — would you say had something to do with the Workmen’s Circle as a secular Jewish organization?\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=2348.0,2371.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/89","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND:  Well, the Arbeter Ring, I, I always used to go with my father.  We — also, there was the Amalgamated Clothing Workers.  It was on Clinton Avenue, and I used to always go with my father, here in Rochester, yes.\n\nDIAMOND: But the Arbeter Ring was very important, because the social life, the active, also, the entire Jewish community.  They met once a month at Nathanson’s Hall on Clinton Avenue to have these big banquets, just to sort of hold themselves together as a community.  Then there was the Mutual Aid Society, which was part of the Arbeter Ring, where Jewish people coming over could borrow money at very, very small interest.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=2371.0,2409.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/90","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND: And of course, as I mentioned, Emma Goldman, her sister, with the Hochstein Music School.  That’s named after David, who was killed in the First World War, as you know.  And they lived down on Joseph Avenue, and my mother was a great friend of the family’s.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=2409.0,2426.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/91","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND: So Emma, when I was a very, very small boy, would come to the house, and my mother would make her dresses for her.  These kind of Mother Hubbard dresses, my mother described them as.\n\nDIAMOND: And then, that summer of ’36, I was sitting on the terrace of the Dome, and I looked and I saw these big, huge blue eyes — ‘cause she had very thick lenses at that time — these two big, blue eyes, like agates, were looking at me.  And she kept looking at my hand that was lying on the table.  And she, she just finally got up, came over and says, “Du bist Anna la Shulhaus’zein — you’re Anna Schildhaus’ son.”\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=2426.0,2465.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/92","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND: I said, “Yes, Emma, my God.”  You know.\n\nDIAMOND: She had remembered me from my lappa.  And the face — the face.  I wasn’t, I hadn’t yet lost most of my hair, and I had lots of red hair, so she remembered everything.\n\nDIAMOND: But she would come often to the house.  We lived on Kelly Street, and it was quite near Joseph Avenue, and they were somewhere down on Hauser.  Of course, she had to get out very fast.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=2465.0,2491.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/93","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" LEVIN:  What are you writing now?\n\nDIAMOND:  Now, I am finishing orchestrating my opera, and sort of taking it easy.  These are not very — health wise — not very easy years.  So I, I think once you get into your 80s, you can take it a little easier.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=2491.0,2509.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/94","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND: But I’m going to finish up the symphony I’m working on now.  And the opera.\n\nLEVIN:  What’s the opera?\n\nDIAMOND:  The opera is a, it’s called The Noblest Game.  It was written, the libretto, by an extraordinary woman named Katie Lockheim, in Washington.  And she died recently, at the age of 90 or 91.\n\nLEVIN:  You mean from the…\n\nDIAMOND:  The Lockheim… Walter Lockheim.\n\nLEVIN:  The Walter Lockheim that endows the…\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=2509.0,2528.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/95","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND:  That’s it.  The Library of Congress.\n\nLEVIN:  The Library of Congress, yeah.\n\nDIAMOND:  That’s right.  And Katie’s a fine poet.\n\nDIAMOND: And I had had such trouble, because I wanted to do an opera on Billy Budd, and then that momzer, Benjamin Britten, after reading through my already-published setting of Billy and the Darbys, has the gall — he read it up at Leonard Bernstein’s — and he, he and Peter Pears had just read through it.  It had just been published the previous summer.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=2528.0,2555.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/96","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND: He said, “Oh, I hear you’re writing an opera on Billy Budd.”\n\nDIAMOND: And I said, “Yes.  Howard Moss is going to do the libretto.”\n\nDIAMOND: Before I know it, I’m in Italy and my friend Alec Wilder sends me a telegram.  “I hate to tell you this.  Benjamin Britten doing an opera on Billy Budd.” So I stopped. Then, I began The Wings of the Dove.  Same story.  A friend comes over.\n\nDIAMOND: “I have a commission to do an opera with Douglas Moore.  Do you know a Henry James novel that would be a good one to do?”\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=2555.0,2584.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/97","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND: And so I said, “Yes.  The Golden Bowl would be wonderful.  Do that.  But if you’d like to read what I’ve done with The Wings of the Dove, it’s very hard to knock out a Henry James libretto, you can.”\n\nDIAMOND: So I gave it to Ethan Ayer, he read it, he came back.  I remember he had two big bunches of roses.  He said, “Boy, what a great, great libretto you’ve written for this.”  And I began working on it. Same thing.  Year after that, Ford Foundation gives him a commission to write an opera with Douglas Moore.  They choose The Wings of the Dove.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=2584.0,2610.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/98","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND: So you see, I said, no more public domain books for me.  I want an original libretto.\n\nDIAMOND: I had met Katie in Washington when I first went down to hear my music there.  And I had known her poetry.  So I said, “Katie, do you suppose you could write me an original libretto?”  And she did.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=2610.0,2627.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/99","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND: And it’s a really, really exciting libretto, about Washington shortly after war.  It begins with two Martha Mitchells on the telephone gossiping, and then their husbands, and then back to this great woman who arrives in San Francisco.  And you don’t know, but this little kid who never says a word during the entire opera, but holds the clue to why it ends as it does.\n\nDIAMOND: Now, we’re having a terrible time getting this opera produced.  I finished it in ’75.  And opera companies and money.  You know, this is the big problem.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=2627.0,2661.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/100","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND: Now, six arias from it were to be done a month ago in Seattle with the Seattle Symphony — Juliana Gondick was going to sing them.  She comes down with pneumonia.  The end of that. So it’s — and it was supposed to be done at the City Center last year — two years ago.\n\nLEVIN:  Well, that’s what happened to Hugo Weisgall’s opera.\n\nDIAMOND:  Exactly.  Esther.\n\nLEVIN:  Three times, for Esther.\n\nDIAMOND:  Yes.\n\nLEVIN:  Did you hear Esther?\n\nDIAMOND:  Oh, sure.  Wonderful, great, great.  And you know, they were supposed to repeat it the next year?\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=2661.0,2686.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/101","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" LEVIN:  And it was canceled as well.\n\nDIAMOND:  Yeah.  So I’ve left it, you know.  I said, “Jerry, please.  Do the arias.  I don’t want to hear anything about it.”\n\nLEVIN:  And that was the last Judaically related opera done.  We could use another one.  When you finish this one.\n\nDIAMOND:  Well, I doubt whether I’ll be able to do it.  It’s hard, finishing up the last orchestration.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=2686.0,2704.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/102","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" DIAMOND: But it’s an exciting libretto, and I think Katie did a great job.  Maybe, maybe I’ll still be around when it’s done.\n\nLEVIN:  I’m sure you will.\n\nDIAMOND:  I told Gerard Schwartz, “You take it upon yourself.  You handle it all.  You know the opera companies.  I don’t want to have anything to do with this anymore.”\n\nDIAMOND: But he wants to do Ahavah too, so I’m very glad about that.  The Kaddish he’s recorded.  I’m sure you’ll get that.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=2704.0,2726.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966/transcript/25012/annotation/103","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" LEVIN:  The Kaddish, yes.\n\nDIAMOND:  So, I’m glad about that.\n\nLEVIN:  It’s been a pleasure talking to you.\n\nDIAMOND:  It’s been a pleasure for me.\n\nLEVIN:  It really has.  And I learned quite a bit myself this morning.\n\nDIAMOND:  Good.  Thank you.\n\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40301/file/111966#t=2726.0,2746.26133"}]}]}]}