10th anniversary of Siegfried Palm's death

"You can do anything but damage the instrument". This was Palm's motto in his lessons, recalls Werner Schmitt, who had studied with him. The gripping way in which Siegfried Palm (1927-2005) approached new music was passed on to his students. He took every single note of a new work as seriously as others only did with classical and romantic music.
Heinz von Loesch assesses Palm's significance as follows: "Palm's importance for the rise of the cello in the history of composition in the age of sound composition and action art can hardly be overestimated". He possessed the rare gift of "grasping and realizing as far as possible what was meant compositionally in the actually unplayable parts" (Music in the past and present, Personenteil, Volume 13, Column 55, Stuttgart 2005).

As Schmitt reports, chamber music courses lasting one to two weeks were held at the conservatory in Bern six times a year for many years with Siegfried Palm, who was brought to Bern by the then director Urs Frauchiger. Jean-Luc Darbellay, who himself often took part in these courses as a conductor or later as a composer, dates the courses to the years 1983 to 2001. The courses were always concluded with a small concert at which the newly rehearsed pieces, only contemporary and modern classical repertoire, were presented and commented on by Siegfried Palm. Darbellay considers this work to be exciting, "especially as the rehearsals also took place in the presence of the composition teachers (Cristóbal Halffter and Dimitri Terzakis). In February 1990, Radio France produced a portrait of our work together and WDR made a film Palm in Bernon the occasion of his 60th birthday." From this period, Darbellay composed seven cello pieces (solo, with ensemble or with orchestra) for Siegfried Palm, which he performed in Switzerland and Germany.

Julius Berger and Thomas Demenga, not direct students of Palm, but inspired by him, will play on June 6 at the Bern Yehudi Menhuin Forum great works of cello literature: Max Reger's fourth cello sonata is in need of an aesthetic rediscovery in the 21st century, while Bernd Alois Zimmermann's Sonata for violoncello solo Palm in 1960 was an enormous challenge. In addition to the pianist Oliver Kern, cellists of the younger generation can also be heard: Gunta Abele opens the concert with Jean-Luc Darbellay's S for Siegfried Palm from 2003 for violoncello solo, while Alessio Pianelli, Moritz Kolb, Clara Rada Gomez , Gaëlle Lefebvre and Alicia Rieckhoff in the ensemble together with Thomas Demenga performed Samuel Barber's Adagio for strings op. 11 in the version for six cellos.