Helen Grime: Chamber Music
Hebrides Ensemble
Lines, shapes, jabs and brushstrokes abound in this survey of Helen Grime's chamber music...Her playful approach to texture is just as clear in her smaller-scale works as it is in her more widely...
Helen Grime: Chamber Music
Hebrides Ensemble
Purchase product
Lines, shapes, jabs and brushstrokes abound in this survey of Helen Grime's chamber music...Her playful approach to texture is just as clear in her smaller-scale works as it is in her more widely...
About
Hebrides Ensemble continues its acclaimed series of albums devoted to the work of contemporary Scottish composers with this survey of chamber music by Helen Grime.
Seven Pierrot Miniatures, commissioned by the Ensemble in 2010, ranges from dream-like melancholy to mischief and mania in its response to moods derived from Albert Giraud’s moonstruck symbolism. Harp of the North, for solo piano, and the string sextet Into the Faded Air move beyond their extra-musical stimuli (evocations of the natural world prompted by the poetry of, respectively, Walter Scott and T.S. Eliot) into purely musical explorations of texture and melodic patterning, while four other works for a variety of instrumental duos and trios reveal inspirations ranging from the painter Joan Eardley to the ‘outdoor’ associations of the French horn.
Contents and tracklist
Spotlight on this release
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Contemporary Music Round-Up - Winter 2025
18th Dec 2025
In our latest round-up of contemporary music releases, Ben celebrates the work of two nonagenarians, explores the colour spectrum through the orchestra, enjoys pictorial British chamber music, and find the twenty-first-century symphony to be in rude health.
Awards and reviews
October 2025
Lines, shapes, jabs and brushstrokes abound in this survey of Helen Grime's chamber music...Her playful approach to texture is just as clear in her smaller-scale works as it is in her more widely known writing for larger ensembles.
October 2025
this new album featuring the splendid Hebrides Ensemble in a septet of diverse chamber and instrumental works is welcome and illuminating in equal measure. Bewilderingly so at times, and I must confess it took a couple of listenings through to tune in to Grime's wavelength. Persistence pays dividends, however
7th August 2025
Grime’s fastidious ear to colour and texture is evident in all the instrumental combinations...Ted Hughes’s poetry lies behind the trio Snow and Snow, while the starting point for the crisp, vivid Seven Pierrot Miniatures, composed for the same instrumental lineup as Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire, is obvious enough. But as all the Hebrides’ performances demonstrate, this music can communicate even without any of its external references.
