ORCHESTRAL REVIEWS
This enticing format, a ‘single’ at just over 22 minutes, is an effective way of getting to know a new work and it should win plenty of friends for Helen Grime’s Violin Concerto as played by Malin Broman. Actually not so new, this is a recording of the world premiere as given at Stockholm’s Berwald Hall on December 15, 2016. But as such it is an impressive addition to the growing legacy of powerful 21st-century British violin concertos of similar length and proportions, Oliver Knussen (2002), Thomas Adès (2005) and Huw Watkins (2010), and should join them in the international repertoire.
Grime worked closely with both Broman herself and also the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and its inspired conductor Daniel Harding. These partnerships audibly paid off and composers must often dream of first performances imbued with such dedication and absolute brilliance. Broman’s virtuosity is both technical and musical and the writing she inspired is immediately gripping and never lets you go, the invention is wide-ranging, both haunting and exhilarating in equal measure, and is dazzlingly crafted for the soloist either against or within the orchestra. A genuine winner! Geraint Lewis, Gramophone, March 2026