“[...] What emerges is small-scale in construction but has an aura that lingers after the final bars. The main storyteller is the solo harp (Sally Pryce), pinging around icy broken chords that gradually shimmer and bend through the two other chamber ensembles ranged around the room.
At first it’s a little like “white noise”, as if someone is tuning an old-fashioned TV without finding a channel. As the piece develops, however, the harpist turns into a frustrated balladeer: harsher chords emerge and there’s a sense of underlying ferocity.
Finally, in a quotation from the Gaelic psalm Martyrs (a sensitive nod to Celan’s poetry), the viola introduces a shard of song, although it sounds more like a rite. Suckling, a composer with a vividly theatrical imagination, has risen to the challenge of writing literally colourless music with haunting effect.”