It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to claim that new music during the past 30 years or so would have taken a very different course were it not for Robert Hurwitz. As president of Nonesuch Records between 1984 and 2017, Hurwitz not only successfully nurtured and furthered the recording careers of composers ranging from John Adams to John Zorn; he also foresaw the far-reaching changes in listening habits and musical accessibility that took place during this time. Hurwitz was especially interested in ‘unclassifiable’ artists whose aesthetic lay somewhere in between minimalism, jazz and experimental rock, and in doing so developed an ethos that saw Nonesuch artists not so much gravitating towards the mainstream but rather being encouraged to remain true to their own vision in the belief that the mainstream would eventually gravitate towards them. Which it did, more often than not.

The high regard in which Hurwitz was held among the many musicians with whom he worked is reflected on this excellent disc of 11 piano pieces. It would be misleading to detect the presence of his personality throughout, as each piece imprints the composer’s own character on to the music as much as Hurwitz himself. Nevertheless, one senses in the probing, darting, freewheeling motion of Nico Muhly’s Move, purposeful bass and rhythmic urgency of Steve Reich’s For Bob or the edgy, circling patterns in Donnacha Dennehy’s Her Wits (About Him) – all executed with superb control and precision by Timo Andres – a glimpse of Hurwitz’s razor-sharp critical acumen. Glass’s Evening Song No 2, Laurie Anderson’s Song for Bob and Andres’s Wise Words on the other hand speak more of the man’s warmth and generosity of spirit. John Adams’s I Still Play fluctuates between both character traits in a set of variations that cleverly imbues serious moments with trickster elements, in a nuanced performance by Jeremy Denk.

The shifting stepwise harmonies and chromatic spirals heard in Andres’s homage also points to another theme that resonates throughout the album – the B-H (B flat – B natural) play on Bob Hurwitz’s name (a case of ‘Menuet sur le nom de Hurwitz’ perhaps), which others appear to have latched on to as well in different ways: Louis Andriessen’s Rimsky or La Monte Young or Brad Mehldau’s dark, moodily evocative LA Pastorale, played by the composer himself. Mehldau also takes to the piano on Pat Metheny’s yearning, reflective 42 Years, showing off the jazz guitarist’s uncanny ability to imbue a new tune with familiar resonances.

Like Andriessen’s souvenir, other pieces draw on a diverse range of references – from Bach and Beethoven to Schoenberg and Satie – to reflect Hurwitz’s own catholic tastes. And herein lies the secret to both Hurwitz and Nonesuch’s success: an ability, as Hurwitz himself put it, to make music ‘for the other people in the room’.