There are probably as many composers per capita in Switzerland as in any European country, but their music doesn't "travel" well to UK.

So, all credit to Godsmiths for sponsoring this visit, hopefully the first of many by colleagues of Francesco Hoch of Lugano, who introduced fragments of music by several of them and in a pre-concert talk stressed the rich mix of influences from Germany, France and Italy amongst them.

This concert was an impressive demonstration of quality performance of difficult new music by students who are primarily engaged in academic studies.

All did themselves credit in effective accounts of works in different styles. Most successful was a peripatetic string duo commissioned by a brother and sister, the violinist moving around the hall before settling affectionately with his partner. A piece well worth considering to programme with the Kodaly or Tate duo sonata in a relatively limited repertoire (or am I wrong to suggest so, as I discovered in the case of the clarinet-violin-piano trio...).

The ambitious extended Suite Palomar gave opportunities for varied textures and advanced techniques to be drawn from Goldsmiths'chamber music group under the versatile hands of cellist/professor/conductor Alexander Ivashkin.

The preceding illustrated talk was less well prepared, and the brief recorded excerpts from several composers had needed a rehearsal with the fickle equipment. For an audience of only a dozen recruited to attend (amongst some 7,000 students at Goldsmiths) the seating would have better been rearranged in a seminar format; because of language limitations, Mr Koch's address would better have been read for him, leaving him freer to answer questions.

Too much coverage was attempted for an hour or so; a weekend residency might have been more appropriate, something equivalent to Goldsmiths' international conferenceon 20C music 2001, with Ferneyhough as a key speaker.

I have received several interesting CDs related to Mr Hoch's talk and have sampled his opera The Magic Ring [Migros MGB CD 6251], about collapse and recovery of the Stock Exchange, which in these times of world-wide financial turmoil appears very topical.

It has only been given in a concert version (Milan, 2002) and would be well worth considering for UK performance, maybe by a college which has capability for electronics etc as well as the usual resources - City University and Goldsmiths come to mind?

Peter Grahame Woolf