Christopher Palmer


Christopher Francis Palmer was an English arranger, orchestrator, record producer and film score composer. He was also an author and lecturer, the biographer of composers, champion of lesser-known composers and commentator on film music and other musical subjects.

Overview

Involved in a very wide range of projects, Palmer's output was prodigious and he came to be regarded as one of the finest symphonic orchestrators of his generation. He arranged music from the film scores and other music of William Walton, Malcolm Arnold, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Ernest Bloch. Artists who have performed his work include José Carreras, James Galway, Julian Lloyd Webber, and Jill Gomez.
Palmer was dedicated to the conservation, recording and promotion of classic film scores by composers such as Bernard Herrmann, Dimitri Tiomkin, Franz Waxman, Miklós Rózsa, Elmer Bernstein and others. He wrote full biographies as well as sleeve notes, radio scripts, reviews and articles on composers such as Benjamin Britten, Frederick Delius, Karol Szymanowski, Arthur Bliss, George Dyson, Herbert Howells, Maurice Ravel, Nikolai Tcherepnin and others. Outside the area of music, he put together anthologies of the prose of Arthur Machen and James Farrar.

Biography

Palmer was born in Norfolk in 1946. He early showed interest in music, encouraged by his father, a RAF pilot, who had trained as a church organist. He was educated at Norwich School and studied the organ at Saxlingham, then went on to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he qualified in modern languages and music. His teachers at Cambridge included Peter le Huray and Sir David Willcocks.
His first involvement in film music was as a writer, through which he met many film composers in the United Kingdom and United States. He struck up a friendship with Bernard Herrmann, who was living in London at the time. He assisted Herrmann with his scoring for Taxi Driver and Obsession. Through Herrmann, Palmer had met Charles Gerhardt, with whom he collaborated on at least 15 albums. Miklós Rózsa was impressed by Palmer's critiques of his work and invited him to assist with the orchestration of his score for Providence and all his subsequent films. He then met Elmer Bernstein, who used Palmer's assistance in scoring Heavy Metal. This led to further orchestration work with film composers such as Maurice Jarre, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, and Stanley Myers.
He collaborated with Sergei Prokofiev's son Oleg on the publication of Sergei Prokofiev, Soviet Diary, 1927 and Other Writings. His planned biography of Prokofiev was left unfinished. Prone to overwork himself, one of the last things Palmer said to Ray Sumby, his literary editor, was "Ray, don't take on too much." He died of an AIDS-related disease in St Bartholomew's Hospital London at the age of 48.

Arrangements and orchestrations

Christopher Palmer's arrangements and orchestrations included:

Record producer

His activities as a record producer included:

Writings

Impressionism in Music, Hutchinson University Library Ravel, Novello Short Biographies The Music of Charles Camilleri, an introduction, Midsea Publications Miklós Rózsa. A Sketch of His Life And Work with a foreword by Eugene OrmandyBliss, Novello Short Biographies Delius: Portrait of a Cosmopolitan, Duckworth Herbert Howells: A Study, Novello, also published in FrenchSzymanowski, BBC Music Guide, also published in FrenchThe Britten Companion, ed. Palmer George Dyson: a Centenary Appreciation Dimitri Tiomkin: A Portrait, T.E. Books Spring Returning: a selection from the works of James Farrar, selected and introduced by Palmer, Autolycus The Collected Arthur Machen, ed. Palmer, Duckworth Dyson's Delight, ed. Palmer, a selection of Dyson's uncollected articles and talks on musicThe Composer in Hollywood, Marion Boyars Publishers Sergei Prokofiev: Soviet Diary 1927 and Other Writings, ed. Palmer with Oleg Prokofiev George Dyson: Man and Music, Thames Publishing
Palmer edited Miklós Rózsa's memoir, Double Life, which he organized from the composer's dictated recollections. He selected the material and wrote an introduction for The Collected Arthur Machen in 1988, and persuaded his publishers Duckworth to publish Machen's Collected Works in the 1980s. He also wrote a chapter on Nikolai Tcherepnin for The New Grove Dictionary of Opera edited by Stanley Sadie. Palmer's work on a new biography of Sergei Prokofiev was cut short by his death and his papers on this project are stored at the Serge Prokofiev Archive.
In addition, Palmer wrote hundreds of record reviews, program notes, radio scripts, lecture scripts, and record sleeve notes. Christopher Palmer was twice nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Album Notes:

Film music

Christopher Palmer composed the original music for Miloš Forman's film Valmont.
He worked as an orchestrator or arranger on such films as Obsession, Zulu Dawn, A Passage to India, Spies Like Us, Legal Eagles, Scenes from the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills, Shirley Valentine and The Witches.
He was the Musical Assistant/Associate on films such as The French Lieutenant's Woman and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, Music Co-Producer on Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes, and Music Consultant on Cape Fear.