On today’s date in 1944, a 29-year-old American composer named David Diamond had his Second Symphony premiered by the Boston Symphony under the famous Russian conductor Serge Koussevitzky.

Diamond says he had actually written this music for the charismatic Greek maestro Dimitri Mitropoulos, who was then music director of the Minneapolis Symphony.

“Mitropoulos had given a fine performance of my First Symphony,” said Diamond. “When I showed him the score of the Second he said, ‘you must have the parts extracted at once!’ As these were readied, I asked him whether he was planning to perform the work. He then told me he thought he would not stay on in Minneapolis, but he said, ‘Why don’t you send it to Koussevitzky?’ I did so, and Koussevitzky sent me a telegram that there would be a trial reading of my work at Symphony Hall. When it was over, the orchestra applauded like crazy. Koussevitzky turned to me and said, ‘I vill play!’”

Successful as the Diamond premiere was back in 1944, for many decades thereafter his neo-Romantic symphonies were rather neglected. In 1989, conductor Gerard Schwartz sparked a revival of interest with this Seattle Symphony recording of the Diamond Second.

By then, Diamond was in his 70s, and commented: “It is my strong feeling that a romantically inspired contemporary music, tempered by reinvigorated classical technical formulas, is the way out of the present period of creative chaos in music... the romantic spirit in music is important because it is timeless.”