Hebrides Ensemble continues its acclaimed series of albums devoted to the work of contemporary Scottish composers with this survey of chamber music by Helen Grime.

Seven Pierrot Miniatures, commissioned by the Ensemble in 2010, ranges from dream-like melancholy to mischief and mania in its response to moods derived from Albert Giraud’s moonstruck symbolism. Harp of the North, for solo piano, and the string sextet Into the Faded Air move beyond their extra-musical stimuli (evocations of the natural world prompted by the poetry of, respectively, Walter Scott and T.S. Eliot) into purely musical explorations of texture and melodic patterning, while four other works for a variety of instrumental duos and trios reveal inspirations ranging from the painter Joan Eardley to the ‘outdoor’ associations of the French horn.