The sudden death in February 2016 of the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Steven Stucky came as a major shock not just to American musical life but to the wider world as well. That he was held in high esteem can be seen from the range of composer friends, colleagues and former students – 32 in all – who composed memorial piano pieces in his honour for Gloria Cheng’s project. While most are Americans, the contributors range far and wide, including Colin Matthews, Julian Anderson, Judith Weir (Britain), Anders Hillborg (Sweden), Magnus Lindberg and Esa-Pekka Salonen (Finland), Chen Yi (China) and Brett Dean (Australia). The recording concludes with music by Stucky himself – Two Holy Sonnets of Donne for mezzo-soprano, oboe and piano, movingly rendered by Peabody Southwell and Carolyn Hove, accompanied by Cheng.

Like any such collection, the music tells one more about the contributors than their subject. The titles alone reflect their wide range of interests and memories of the man, whether Andrew Waggoner’s … and Maura brought me cookies, a vignette of being plied with cookies by Stucky’s daughter, or shared musical enthusiasms, particularly Debussy and Lutosławski (Charles Bodman Rae, Fang Man, Dean, Michael Small, James Matheson, Rouse, Kay Rhie, Matthews, Daniel Godfrey). Some created musical ciphers from his name (Jesse Jones, David Lefkowitz, Harbison, Bodman Rae), while others adopted a freer approach with outwardly more straightforward memorial works – though these cover many moods from anger or grief (Salonen, Stephen Andrew Taylor, Harbison, William Kraft, Eric Nathan, Phibbs, Pierre Jalbert) to affection and appreciation (Julia Adolphe, Gabriela Lena Frank, Steven Mackey, Hannah Lash, Louis Chiappetta, David Liptak) and serenity (Rouse). Donald Crockett’s Nella luce, among others, quotes from Stucky’s music.

Gloria Cheng plays these very diverse works with great affection and finesse, and Bridge’s sound is excellent. A wonderful memorial to a wonderful composer who left us too soon.