{TABLE} Afterimage (1993)................... Simon waters Pied Piper (1994)................... Rhona Clarke Sin ti por el alma adentro (1987)....Julio D'Escrivain Vermont Counterpoint (1982)......... Steve Reich {/TABLE} THUNDER retreating over the rain-forests, the scurrying of unseen animals, breaking of crockery and the dripping of taps, those are the sort of images that electronic music brings to my mind. And when these taped sounds are mixed with the pure tones of the solo flute, as they were in Eleanor Dawson's recital of electro-acoustic music in the Lane Gallery at noon recently it is like two worlds trying to communicate, but only partly succeeding.

In Afterimage by Simon Waters, in which the solo part was played on a baroque flute the playing techniques used and the almost drone-like effect of the tape were strongly reminiscent of the preluding in Indian classical music: Rhona Clarke's Pied Piper, with its explicit debt to a Bach Partita, brought the listener into the world of counterpoint, but nothing like to the same extent as Steve Reich's Vermont Counterpoint, a work that could be performed by eleven flautists but is primarily intended for a soloist, playing in turn flute alto flute and piccolo, accompanied by the other ten parts on tape, prerecorded by Eleanor Dawson with the collaboration of Michael Alcorn.

The difference in tone quality between solo and taped sound made the work less hypnotic in its characteristically Reichian repetitions than if all the sounds had been taped. Julio D'Escrivain's Sin ti por el alma adentro blended soloist and tape in a way that gave prominence to the tape whereas in the other works the soloist commanded the attention.

Throughout the recital, Eleanor Dawson's skill and rapport with the music made her a powerful advocate of the genre.