Helen Grime

…Certainly the revival of Helen Grime’s A Cold Spring (2009) was well deserved. Written for Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, and inspired by the poetry of Elizabeth Bishop, a concertante aspect is often obliquely evident – horn emerging as ‘first among equals’ within the luminous central movement, whereas those on either side are both through-composed designs that draw on larger forces in an intensive yet dextrous interplay. Dextrousness was more than evident in this fine performance under the watchful guidance of Thierry Fischer….

… music of deft atmospheric detail.

Grime counts Oliver Knussen among her mentors and shares his eloquence, but her palette is all her own, weaving evocative, restless motives with cool insistence. She writes as though her music needs to be told...

A Cold Spring sounded as quietly ­distinctive as at its first outing at ­Aldeburgh last summer.