Buried treasure

Pianist Jeremy Denk on three musical rarities from his record collection Ives Violin Sonatas

Gregory Fulkerson (violin), Robert Shannon (piano) Bridge BCD9024 The Ives Violin Sonatas are a bit more Romantic than a lot of his works. They are a lot about hymns, childhood musical experiences, camp meetings, places where people were singing and marching, communal experiences of music. There’s something very truthful about the way Gregory Fulkerson and Robert Shannon play this music, the way they absorb themselves into Ives’s various styles. He is often in quotation marks, with many references and switches from one voice to another. Stucky Piano Sonata

Xak Bjerken (piano)

Open G Records 191924162841

US composer Steven Stucky deserves far more attention. I worked with him on a silly vaudeville opera about Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven, which ends with a beautiful, heartfelt farewell to the classical style.

His music is also serious, thoughtful, well constructed and often meditative. Unfortunately, since working on the opera he has died. His Piano Sonata – which I was struck by when I heard it at his memorial service – is one of the last works he finished, and this recording by Xak Bjerken is very good. Harrison Concerto for Organ with Percussion Orchestra Paul Jacobs (organ); San Francisco Symphony/michael Tilson Thomas SFS Media SFS0056

Some years ago I was playing with Michael Tilson Thomas in the American Mavericks festival in San Francisco when I heard a performance of this concerto by Lou Harrison. It’s something between an LSD trip and a Bach festival, with a lot of Javanese rhythms thrown in. It is full of joy and invention, and is quite weird. This recording is a blast and a half.

Jeremy Denk plays at Milton Court on 27 February and 3 March