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- Helen Grime
Meditations on Joy (2019)
- Chester Music Ltd (World)
Jointly commissioned by Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, Music and Artistic Director Gustavo Dudamel, and the BBC. First performed on 23 February 2023 at Walt Disney Concert Hall by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Otto Tausk.
- 3(pic:afl).2+ca.3.2+cbn/4.3.2+btbn.1/timp.4perc/cel.hp/str
- 15 min
Programme Note
The piece is cast in three movements, and each takes its starting point from a different poem associated with Joy. The first movement is muted and melancholy in nature, layering long woodwind lines with keening string melodies. Sudden bright outbursts, firstly in brass and percussion and later for full orchestra come more to the foreground, with the movement ending in a blaze of activity.
The second movement is lively and dance-like. Whirling woodwind gestures lead to moments of outpouring, featuring soaring horn lines and rapid runs in strings and woodwind. From this activity, moments of repose emerge; long melodic lines always punctuated by insistent pulsing in celesta and glockenspiel.
The third movement begins with absolute calm, the atmosphere is hazy, a kind of a musical representation of bliss. This is juxtaposed by intense, rapid falling lines in woodwind and pitched percussion. The piece ends with a sort of muted lullaby.
Programme note © 2020 Helen Grime
Scores
Reviews
The whole piece is only around a quarter of an hour long, but the impact of the music is huge. From the restrained, overlapping lines of the opening, a creeping slow-moving bass melody and a tolling bell, the feeling is of the monumental, despite the short duration. ...The first violins’ long, disjunct melody [in the second movement] is simply beautiful – a real underlining that ‘modern’ music really can touch the soul. ...The finale is Grime’s version of Impressionism: hazy, indistinct, languid. Like the master Impressionists, the scoring is perfect. It is clear Grime knows exactly what she wishes to achieve – here, not only an atmosphere, but also a restatement of that baseline lyricism that has underpinned the entire work, from the slower moving melody of the first movement to its ending now.
The scoring is clean, luminous and hugely inventive… line and gesture dominate, and, in as well-prepared a performance such as this, it creates its own elusive world.
...a richly atmospheric and delicately coloured piece – Debussy a presence in its hinterland – that should be heard again.
More Info
- Kent Nagano to premiere new work by Helen Grime
- 29th September 2023
- Kent Nagano and the Hamburg Philharmonic premiere River by Helen Grime on 8 October 2023
- Helen Grime premiere at the BBC Proms
- 18th July 2023
- The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Ryan Wigglesworth give the European Premiere of Helen Grime's Meditations on Joy at the BBC Proms on 23 July 2023.