Having made among the finest recent recordings of Ives’s Second (Concord) Sonata (BIS, 11/17), Joonas Ahonen now turns to its predecessor, though a work which evolved throughout the 1900s and was substantially overhauled during the 1920s might hardly be regarded as such.

Its five substantial movements make this First Sonata every bit as challenging technically as conceptually. Ahonen has the measure of the odd-numbered movements with their alternately ecstatic and transcendent episodes, unfolding within a context of deep repose. Less involving are the scherzos placed second and fourth, their quirky ‘introduction and fantasia’ trajectories lucidly rendered if lacking the ultimate emotional abandon. Here the greater flair of Tamara Stefanovich comes audibly into its own, as does her more cumulatively sustained intensity. Almost as perceptive taken overall, Andrew Rangell’s relatively self-contained approach is enhanced by the imaginative coupling of Nielsen’s suite Den Luciferiske. Nevertheless, no one who first encounters the Ives in Ahonen’s committed reading is likely to feel short-changed.

Also featured on this album is the tautly compressed Three-Page Sonata in which Ives decisively embraced the progressive tendencies of his maturity, its mesmeric central section made even more so by Ahonen’s decision to realise the attendant bell patterns on celesta and hence giving him the edge over Nathan Williamson’s comparably fine version. Ahonen also makes an invigorating case for Peter Parker (2004), Bernhard Gander’s decidedly visceral depiction of the eponymous anti-hero’s transformation into Spider-Man through music that betrays not the merest hint of comic-strip reductionism. As with that earlier BIS release, the wide-ranging sound and detailed booklet notes leave nothing to be desired, thereby making for a highly recommendable follow-up that Ivesians everywhere should investigate.