Boston Classical Review

Conrad Tao performed Sunday at Jordan Hall for Vivo Performing Arts.

Imaginative recital programming seems to come naturally to pianist-composer Conrad Tao. He consistently merges contemporary classical music into his repertoire, and often his own compositions. His appearance last February at Boston Arts Academy Theatre paired tap-dance with Bach, Brahms, and Ravel, among others.

What emerged on Sunday afternoon in Jordan Hall was a fresh take on Brahms’s Klavierstücke, Op. 118, and Ravel’s Gaspard de la nuit, and an appreciation for the contemporary works interspersed throughout. Tao is an artist unafraid to project a distinct creative vision. There is a sense of personal curation in this program with pieces arranged by aesthetic instinct rather than chronology. It was a reminder that even the most familiar repertoire can feel newly immediate in the right hands.

Fully exploring the hall’s dynamic range, Tao opened with Brahms’s No. 1 Intermezzo. He drew a gritty, powerful sound from the instrument, at times at the expense of clarity in detail, yet his expressive rubato suited the Romantic sensibility of the piece.

David Fulmer’s I have loved a stream and a shadow, part 1 carries the subtitle “With glitter of sun-rays, Nor with stars stretched, nor looking back from heaven” (from Ezra Pound’s Canto I).  The piano writing flutters across extreme registers, and Tao allowed these gestures to resonate through the hall. He colored the sparkling figures with a sense of mystery, suggestive of the work’s cosmic imagery.

Moving attaca into Brahms’s famous No. 2 Intermezzo, the lines took on a vividly fresh interpretation, a glittering evening-song rather than an intimate reflection. Lush sounds developed from the heartbreaking melodies, with special attention to inner voices.

Continuing with Brahms, the Ballade unfolded as a punctuated, steady march in its opening. The middle section relaxed into a pastoral simplicity before the return of the opening material took on a more scherzo-like character.

Both the Ballade and the ensuing Intermezzo struggled to move beyond their underlying pulse to reveal a broader architecture, though Tao’s control of gentle dynamics and chord voicing remained impressive.

Rebecca Saunders’s Mirror, mirror, on the wall begins with delicate chord clusters and intervals, with particular emphasis on the release of sound. Repeated notes form a tenuous thread, shifting narrowly in pitch. Tao delivered sharply accented chords with startling force. Not quite avant-garde in the manner of John Cage’s 4′33″—though ambient audience noises nearly contributed—stomping and pedal effects added an element of theatrical percussion. Whatever is printed on the score should be an interesting read.

Tao has a healthy obsession with sound, the colors of this Jordan Hall piano flourishing in kaleidoscopic shimmers. Brahms Romanze at the end of the first half fluttered in water-patters complementing the preceding piece, though the pacing left the final phrase feeling unresolved.

Perhaps his first half was intentionally left unanswered, waiting for the poetry of Bernadette Mayer to speak on its behalf. Todd Moellenberg’s Leg of Lamb requires the pianist to read this poem aloud while playing, with flexible coordination between speech and music. Tao breezed through this work in natural spoken inflection, without strict adherence to the lines or punctuations.

Tao introduced part 2 and 3 of the Fulmer work with both hands in unison, in a distinctly emphatic reading. Twiddly Ravel-like figures floated, and the slightest trace of scales and modalities teased what was to come. Here the percussive middle register lines grounded the work.

Tao’s performance of Ravel’s Gaspard de la nuit elevated the entire recital. The suite perfectly suits his penchant for beautiful colors and characters, each movement summoning different personalities from its literary and visual inspirations.

“Ondine” shimmered with fluid motion, its textures unfolding in layered waves. In “Le Gibet,” Tao sustained a quietly ominous atmosphere with subtle shifts in color; the tolling repeated figure created a sense of suspended, searching stillness.

Committing wholly to the intriguing character of “Scarbo,” Tao’s ferocious, lightning virtuosity was thrilling. He balanced technical brilliance with a sharply defined sound world, capturing both the work’s volatility and its precision. Notes seemed to spill effortlessly from the keyboard, projecting vibrantly into the hall.

The final Brahms Intermezzo (No. 6) opened with a lighter, almost French-inflected palette before moving into a more symphonic, drier sound for the middle section. The closing arpeggio offered a sigh of relief, astonishment at this program’s brief, adventurous journey.

Tao described the program’s close as “a bit of a downer,” and offered a C-Major encore: “Le jardin féerique” (The Fairy Garden) from Ravel’s orchestral Ma mère l’Oye (Mother Goose). In his solo piano rendering, textures remained rich yet transparent, preserving the work’s quiet magic.

Vivo Performing Arts presents pianist Víkingur Ólafsson playing works by Bach, Beethoven, and Schubert, 8 p.m. on Friday, March 20 at Symphony Hall. vivoperformingarts.org

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