Those who follow new music in the UK will likely have come across Martin Suckling (b1981) with his impressive song-cycle Candlebird (London Sinfonietta, 2/13) or striking contribution to the first volume of ‘The Panufnik Legacies’ (LSO Live, 2013), but this is the first release to have been devoted to his music.

It is the earliest of these orchestral pieces that leaves the least impression, which is not to suggest that Release (2013) is other than effective in its Lutosławskian chordal outbursts touching off a variety of responses that gradually coalesce into atmospheric harmonic textures hinting at an unfulfilled melodic continuation. Nevertheless, the Piano Concerto (2014-16) seems more personal in conception. The Vigorous first movement throws up any number of striking ideas opened out over three successive intermezzos, the surging then scurrying outer two of which frame one of glacial immobility, before a final Passacaglia brings the soloist and orchestra into an emotional accord exuding real momentum before its sudden evanescence.

Tamara Stefanovich is the fearless soloist here, with Katherine Bryan no less arresting in The White Road (2016). Its inspiration in the ceramic installations of Edmund de Waal affords a succession of soundscapes that are almost variants of each other, resulting in a ‘song without words’ whose eloquence is denied by the curtest final pay-off. Even more engrossing is This Departing Landscape (2019), its two continuous movements further refining the composer’s modus operandi. Hence a series of disjunctively arrayed motifs that are transmuted into static textures, infused with latent activity that might yield greater melodic impetus beyond the close.

The playing of the BBC orchestras betrays no hint of uncertainty under the astute guidance of Ilan Volkov, matched by excellent sound and detailed annotations from Suckling and Julian Anderson. This NMC Portrait might have been a time coming but the wait was worthwhile.