HELEN GRIME (b.1981): Virga, Everyone Sang, Night Songs, Near Midnight (Hallé; Mark Elder, Jamie Phillips), Into the faded air, A Cold Spring (Hallé Soloists; Phillips), Clarinet Concerto (Lynsey Marsh [clarinet], Hallé Soloists;  Phillips).

Description: The works here span just six years of the composer's output, during which time she has become something of a staple at the BBC, with notable commissions and Proms performances to her name. Grime's music has a distinctive timbre, with a fondness for contrasting extreme registers, rich harmony (with a noticeably closer relationship to tonality in the more recent works), and a tendency to suddenly resolve into beguiling melody in the midst of otherwise densely active textures. The three recent orchestral tone poems adopt a noticeably Brittenesque approach to harmony and texture, much more so than the 2007 Virga, an early success for Grime, which is denser and much less obviously tonal. Poetic and literary inspirations are also important, even when not explicitly referenced in the music; Siegfried Sassoon and D.H. Lawrence provide the imagery behind the evocative landscapes of Everyone Sang and Near Midnight; Elizabeth Bishop that of the expressive contrasts of A Cold Spring; T.S.Eliot the subtle interchanges and ambiguities of Into the faded air. Already a mature and distinctive voice, Grime's future output will certainly warrant close attention.