Earlier releases of Martin Suckling – his song-cycle Candlebird (London Sinfonietta, 2/13) or the NMC ‘portrait’ centred on his Piano Concerto (5/21) – confirmed him as being among the most distinctive British composers of his generation. This latest collection does likewise, albeit not consistently.

Its title stems from The Tuning (2019), settings of five poems by the American-born Michael Donaghy. Suckling speaks of his language as exhibiting a ‘precision of gesture and cadence, and delight in the union of formal elegance with expressive heft’, yet rather unvaried arioso writing and an intricate if detached piano part means verbal imagery only intermittently comes across; no fault of either Marta Fontanals-Simmons or Christopher Glynn. Emily’s Electrical Absence (2017) frames its four movements for string quintet with poems written and read by Frances Leviston, a strategy that falls short of making a cohesive or cumulative whole. Better, maybe, to read these poems and let the quintet do the talking, not least in a fourth movement whose elliptical harmonies and fastidious textures represent Suckling at his imaginative best.

The remaining pieces reflect their composer’s practice of working often late into the night. Nocturne (2013) is a dialogue between violin and cello whose mingling of abrasive timbres with a fraught lyricism is redolent of late Tippett, whereas Her Lullaby (2020) is a meditation on sleep – or the threshold from wakefulness to sleep – unfolded by solo cello in eloquently contemplative terms. The string players from the Aurora Orchestra render these latter three pieces with no lack of commitment or finesse, while the close-focus sound and perceptive annotations leave nothing to be desired. Those who responded positively to either of those earlier recordings should find much to absorb and intrigue them on this Delphian release.