No time like the present

A new string quartet shaped by dramatic world events and the arrival of a baby

GRIME PHOTO AMY BARTON. QUARTET PHOTO KAUPO KIKKASS

• RISE LIKE A PHOENIX: The Yorkshire Symphony Orchestra has been resurrected 66 years after its disbandment, to provide a platform for musicians in northern England hit by the pandemic. Conductor Ben Crick says the aim is to provide a ‘musical and cultural voice’ for Yorkshire and the north of England. ‘I know there’s a talent pool there that I can get together and make a really first-rate professional orchestra in Yorkshire,’ he added.

The ensemble, originally formed in 1947, will now deliver a concert tour across Yorkshire this summer, and accompany headline acts at major outdoor events. Photo: Gary Lawson Photography

COMPOSER Helen Grime

WORK String Quartet no.2

ARTIST Heath Quartet

DATE 10 July 2021

PLACE Wigmore Hall, London, UK bit.ly/3fCZ56T

Helen Grime

Heath Quartet

British composer Helen Grime’s new work for the Heath Quartet marks time on an eventful year that upended the creative process. ‘I started writing it in December 2019 and had pretty much finished the first movement when I went to the US for a concert and returned as the UK went into lockdown,’ she says. ‘I was pregnant and had to write the second movement at home, waiting for my son to be occupied with a Skype call or something before I could start work.’ The third and final movement of Grime’s Second String Quartet was completed following the birth of her second child and the easing of restrictions in the UK. ‘Writing in bursts like that affects the music, and because so much around me was changing, the piece changed too. Movements one and two are very intense, with these austere chorales and clouds of material in the first followed by lots of fast rhythmic unison passagesplayed very high up in the second. There are some slightly more laid-back moments, as if the music has been pushed underwater, but the real release happens in the third movement. It’s serene, hopeful music that comes from a different place.’

A co-commission by London’s Wigmore Hall and the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Grime’s new work was meant to get its first performance last year, but Covid-19 put paid to that. Still, as a composer, Grime feels lucky to have been able to use her time during the pandemic to write music, while many players were left wondering what to do next. ‘There was just so much going on,’ she says. ‘Of course it has an impact on your state of mind. At the same time, it’s really difficult to move on creatively when you aren’t able to hear your music in performance. So many premieres have been cancelled that it feels as if some of the music has just evaporated. I can’t wait for this piece to make it out on stage finally.’