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Programme Note

Palin was composed as a sketch for 'Palintropos', a large-scale work written for piano and orchestra and dedicated to Stephen Bishop-Kovacevich. I wrote Palin on the Greek island of Patmos in 1977. The first performance was given by Annette Servadei on 24th November 1980 at the Wigmore Hall, London. The duration is 10 minutes.

Palin is a meditation on the stunning and miraculous changes of light and colour experienced during the course of a day from the monastery on top of the island of Patmos.

The structure of the piece is palindromic.

John Tavener, April 1988