Espressioni for piano, 1974-1975.

A cycle of ten piano pieces that occupies a significant place among Palester’s works. The composer gives the miniatures French titles (with two exceptions), written, following Debussy’s example, at the end of the piece.

A letter to Zofia Helman from 1975 provides more information about the origins of the piece:

"I like Espressioni a lot and I believe it’s a good cycle. It was an attempt of sorts at post-impressionism, but with a big difference. That is, they are not descriptions, but music written under the influence of certain associations specified by words. [...] The titles are given at the end precisely to stress that they are just suggestions to music and do not portray anything. L'ombra della notte remains in quotation marks and only in Italian, because it’s a name of a small sculpture from the town of Volterra near San Gimignano (i.e. in Tuscany) kept in the local Etruscan museum. It's an extraordinary thin piece of bronze, a statue of a female nude. […] And the last Recollection is the date of death of Dallapiccola, who was our close friend. In the middle of this piece there is this fragment from Laments, G sharp-B-G etc. I always quote it (also in Letters to Mother) whenever death is mentioned."

Espressioni was performed for the first time by Marek Drewnowski in 1978 in Paris.