After returning from studying in France with Nadia Boulanger in 1939, American composer David Diamond took up the task of composing preludes and fuges in all the major and minor keys and their enharmonic equivalents. While staying at Yaddo in Saratoga Springs and at the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, NH, he began work on the Preludes and Fugues and ultimately completed 52, published in two books. In Diamond's words, "The fugue subjects are never academic, the contrapuntal rules are obeyed within reasons, the fugal structure is sometimes strict, sometimes free. The piano writing does not try to capture the spirit of the seventeenth and eighteenth century." Although there are no complete recordings of the Preludes and Fugues, the first recording ever made by the young Leonard Bernstein was of one of them. ~ James Leonard, All Music Guide
