Electroacoustic Music: Two concerts by John Palmer in Lucerne

On Friday 21st and Saturday 22nd January 1994, two concerts of electro-acoustic music took place at the Wartegg villa in Lucerne. Actually, a rare - if not unique - event, which would have certainly appealed to a larger audience. However, it has been worthwhile for the few interested people to attend both concerts of a type of music which for the time being holds a marginal place in the musical life of this country.
British composer and pianist, John Palmer, winner of the 1992 Lucerne competition and initiator of both concerts, who has a deep interest in this genre, not only musically but also with scientific meticulousness (he is about to gain a Ph D in Composition) offered two extremely interesting evenings of “chamber music”.

His activities encompass an extraordinarily wide range: up to a few years ago a student at the local conservatoire where he graduated in Piano Studies, today he is a busy composer, lecturer and performer whose qualities as a pianist and synthesizer-player are well known as is his brilliant mastery in the production and design of live-electronics and the direction of an electro-acoustic studio. In this sense, the electronics are his instrument, which he controls even from the piano.
Also astonishing is his development as a composer: up to a few years ago, one could not have foreseen the development of his work. His latest compositions (including Omen for amplified voices and orchestra) are mature pieces, which, it seems to me, are in no way inferior to the works of his mentor Jonathan Harvey which have been performed in these concerts; on the contrary they sometimes surpass them. This is particularly the case in Beyond The Bridge, in both a metaphysical and physical sense (the ponticello of the cello). Of all the works of both evenings this composition seems to be the most original, the most self-contained, and the most pleasant to the ear, and at the same time well thought out and designed throughout its poetical beauty of sound. It also demonstrates most impressively the superimposition of time layers and therefore a negation of time boundaries.

Another discovery seems to me the soloist of the second evening, the cellist Zoe Martlew, also from London. Wonderful technique, coupled with expressiveness and clear understanding of the problems and the new beauties of such music. She dominated the second evening, in which she also was the visual protagonist (John Palmer, discreetly in the background, was nevertheless fully in control during his own compositions and others he was involved in).
Beside the dominating pieces of both concerts, namely the compositions of John Palmer, the other works that stood out were: Andrew Lewis' Storm Song, for piano and tape, Stephen Montague's Haiku for piano ,tape and live-electronics, Katharine Norman's Trying to Translate for the same instrumentation and Jonathan Harvey's Curve with Plateaux for solo cello.
Lamentation as well as accusation conveyed John Palmer's recent work Epitaph* (in memoriam Ursula Saenger) for cello and electronics, performed by both musicians with highest inspiration and concentration. Altogether two most exciting evenings for the lovers and the beginners of this music.

Luzerner Neue Nachrichten, 28th September 1994, Hubert Podstransky

*Note by the composer: this was the first version of Epitaph. It was subsequently revised. The new version is available on CD (sargasso scd 28038)