For the American classical music world George Walker’s was a black life that certainly mattered. Born in 1922, he was the first African-American person to be accepted at the Curtis Institute of Music, first to study with Nadia Boulanger and the first to win the Pulitzer Prize in Music. Walker, who died in 2018, is also one of the few major composer-pianists to have recorded worthy performances of virtuoso standard repertoire.

He wrote five piano sonatas – more than any other major US composer – spanning the years 1953-2003. Steven Beck brings them all together for the first time on record on this superb album released by the New York independent Bridge label. The works chart the development of an intelligent and fertile musical imagination, from the strong counterpoint and Americana influences of the first sonata, through his flirtation with serialism and his return to tonality in his brief, engaging final sonata written at the age of 80.

Beck is a wonderful guide to a body of work that features plenty of keyboard pyrotechnics as well as an engaging sense of adventure. Walker admired the harmonies...