In his commendably straightforward notes, George Benjamin points out that what is most clearly ''sudden'' in this composition is the way in which ''diverse activity can suddenly fuse into periodic, regular, pulsed simplicity''. Even so, the listener should not expect to hear an unambiguous and consistent opposition between complex and simple materials. Benjamin controls the music's proliferating layers and levels without abrupt changes of gear or awkward shifts of style.
Sudden Time is a subtle, refined piece, as one would expect from the composer of At First Light and Antara. It is also much more than a highly-polished miniature; yet no one should find its imaginative, constantly shifting textures in the least forbidding. The earlier stages may promise rather more in the way of boldly dramatic characterization than the piece as a whole actually delivers—the opening has a hushed sense of ominous anticipation that reminded me a little of Schoenberg's Five Orchestral Pieces and also his Accompaniment to a Film Scene. Yet the more aggressive moments of Sudden Time achieve their particular impact through being reined in rather than allowed to run riot, and to this extent the composition keeps its distance from simple reflections of any Martial Cadenza, the title of the Wallace Stevens poem in which the phrase ''sudden time'' is to be found.
I warmly applaud the trend towards issuing CD singles of recent contemporary works, especially when performance and recording are as satisfying as they are here. More, please!'