Robert Moffat Palmer

Robert Moffat (variously "Moffatt" and "Moffett") Palmer (b. June 2, 1915, Syracuse, New York; d. July 3, 2010, Ithaca, New York) was an American composer, pianist and educator. He composed more than 90 works, including two symphonies, Nabuchodonosor (an oratorio), a piano concerto, four string quartets, three piano sonatas and numerous works for chamber ensembles.

Biography

Education Born in Syracuse, New York, Palmer began, at age 12, piano studies with his mother. He attended Syracuse's Central High School, undertaking pre-college studies in piano and additional study of violin and music theory at the Syracuse Music School Settlement.

Early career Palmer came to national attention in an article titled "Robert Palmer and Charles Mills" published in 1943 by critic Paul Rosenfeld in Modern Music. Rosenfeld hails two "new, impressive, distinctive works" by Palmer," noting "an impression of robustness and maturity." In the Concerto for Small Orchestra (1940), Rosenfeld discerns a "quite original opening movement, (whose) clash of melodies in contrary motion was magnificent and fierce," signaling "a new composer to be watched with happy expectation." In Palmer's first two string quartets, Copland discerns "separate movements of true originality and depth of feeling," observing that "always his music has urgency—it seems to come from some inner need for expression." Writing in Clavier magazine in 1989, pianist Ramon Salvatore observed that "[Palmer's] influence on two generations of Cornell composers has been enormous; many of his former students now hold university and college professorships throughout the United States"

Palmer's publishers include Elkan-Vogel, Peer International, C. F. Peters Corporation, G. Schirmer Inc., Valley Music Press, Austin notes "the works [Palmer] creates are taut and sturdy" and cites as characteristic Palmer's use of asymmetrical rhythm and meter, the octatonic scale, "imitative counterpoint" and "expansion of phrases by varied repetition." Austin holds that "Palmer sings with a kind of devout serenity" of the "grim, divided, disappointed world of the 1940s and '50s, doggedly refusing to despair, no matter how often its hopes for liberty, equality and fraternity must be deferred. . . His best music ranks with the best means available for all who share this outlook."

The previous year (1955), Herbert Livingston described the premiere performance of Palmer's String Quartet No. 3 at the University of Michigan as "the most recent addition to the distinguished series of works commissioned by the University for the Stanley Quartet (others cited by Livingston included quartets and quintets by Walter Piston, Quincy Porter, Wallingford Riegger, Darius Milhaud, and Heitor Villa-Lobos). It is both a significant contribution to the repertory of contemporary American chamber music and a work that reveals new developments in the composer's style." Livingston adds, "every refinement of its complex structure contributes positively to the expressiveness of the music."

The premiere performance in 1963 of Palmer's oratorio, Nabuchodonosor, lasting 40 minutes, was greeted by The Musical Quarterly's William C. Holmes as "a culminating point in Robert Palmer's more than twenty-five years as an active composer... It is his largest and most ambitiously conceived work to date. It is a forceful, rough-hewn cry of defiance against tyranny in all forms and, as such, cannot help but move anyone who shares Palmer's views on this subject." Holmes takes note of "the exciting forcefulness that carries one with it to the climax" and of the coda that follows—intended, says Holmes, "to convey a serene greeting of peace to mankind."

Arthur Cohn, surveying four works by Palmer in The Literature of Chamber Music (1997), detects "brilliant contrapuntalism" in Palmer's "vitally communicative music." Cohn notes that "in Palmer's hands repetition is always paralleled by change" and finds "positive tonalism, broadened and colored by contemporary expansion" in the music of "this American composer of virile voice."

In a eulogy written in 2010 for the American Music Center, AMC chair of the board of directors and former Palmer student Steven Stucky noted that "Austin

Commissioned works Concerto for Small Orchestra (1940); commissioned by CBS and the League of Composers Second String Quartet (1943; rev. 1947); commissioned by the Sergei Koussevitzky Music Foundation Variations, Chorale and Fugue for orchestra (1947; rev. 1954); commissioned by Dimitri Mitropoulos and the Minneapolis Symphony Quintet for Piano and Strings (1950); commissioned by the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundation Quintet for Clarinet, Piano and Strings (1952; rev. 1953); commissioned by the Quincy, Illinois Chamber Music Society String Quartet No. 3 (1954); commissioned by the Stanley Foundation of the University of Michigan Of Night and the Sea (1956); commissioned by the Paul Fromm Music Foundation Memorial Music (1960); commissioned by the National Association of Educational Broadcasters Centennial Overture (1965); commissioned by Cornell University and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts Quartet No. 2 for Piano and Strings (1974); commissioned by the Galzio Quartet, Caracas, Venezuela Piano Sonata No. 3 (1979); commissioned by Ramon Salvatore premiered, dedicated to and recorded by William Kapell Quartet for Piano and Strings (1947) Premiered in 1947 by John Kirkpatrick, pianist, and members of the Walden Quartet Quintet for Piano and Strings (1950) premiered in 1951 at the Library of Congress by the Juilliard String Quartet and pianist Erich Itor Kahn Organon II (1975), for string orchestra, premiered April 4, 1975 by the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by David Zinman. Guggenheim Fellowship, 1960 Fulbright Grant, 1960 National Endowment for the Arts grant, 1980

Compositions

Orchestral Poem for violin and chamber orchestra (1938) Concerto for Small Orchestra (1940) K 19, symphonic elegy for Thomas Wolfe Variations, Chorale and Fugue (1947; rev. 1954) Chamber Concerto for violin, oboe and string orchestra (1949) Symphony No. 1 (1953) Memorial Music (1960) Centennial Overture (1965) Symphony No. 2 (1966) Piano Concerto (1971) Symphonia concertante for nine instruments (1972) Organon II for string orchestra (1975) Concerto for two pianos, two percussion, strings and brass (1984)

Wind ensemble Choric Song and Toccata (1968)

Choral Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight for chorus and orchestra (1948) Slow, Slow, Fresh Fount for SATB chorus (1953; rev. 1959) The Trojan Women for women's chorus, winds and percussion (1955) And in That Day for chorus (1963) Nabuchodonosor for tenor and bass soloists, TTBB chorus, winds, percussion, and two pianos (1964) Portents of Aquarius for narrator, SATB chorus and organ (1975)

Chamber ensemble String Quartet No. 1 (1939) Concerto for five instruments (1943) String Quartet No. 2 (1943; rev. 1947) Piano Quartet No. 1 (1947) Piano Quintet (1950) Sonata for viola and piano (1951) Quintet for clarinet, string trio, and piano (1952; rev. 1953) String Quartet No. 3 (1954) Sonata for violin and piano (1956) Piano Trio (1958) String Quartet No. 4 (1960) Organon I for flute and clarinet (1962) Sonata for trumpet and piano (1972) Piano Quartet No. 2 (1974) Organon II for violin and viola (1975) Sonata No. 1 for cello and piano (1978) Sonata No. 2 for cello and piano (1983)

Vocal Two Songs (Walt Whitman) for voice and piano (1940) ' 'Kaw River' ' (Will Gibson) for soprano and piano (1943) Carmina Amoris for soprano, clarinet, violin and piano (1951) Of Night and the Sea, chamber cantata for soprano and bass soloists and orchestra (1956)

Keyboard Piano Sonata No. 1 (1938; rev. 1946) Three Preludes for piano (1941) Piano Sonata No. 2 (1942; rev. 1948) Sonata for two pianos (1944) Toccata Ostinato for piano (1944) Sonata for piano four hands (1952) Evening Music for piano (1956) Seven Epigrams for piano (1957) Epithalamium for organ (1968) Morning Music for piano (1973) ' 'Transitions' ' for piano (1977)* Piano Sonata No. 3 (1979)