Washington Performing Arts Society inaugurated its relationship with the brand-new downtown venue, Sidney Harman Hall, with a recital by Venezuelan-American pianist Gabriela Montero on Saturday afternoon. Although you may have heard about her abilities as an improviser on NPR last year, this was her first appearance in the area since she had to cancel her 2005 recital at the Corcoran. As you would expect of someone who took a Bronze Medal at the 1995 International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw, she was certainly technically impressive, if not rock solid, in a challenging program of three daunting works in the standard repertoire.

A weighty thud of Montero’s hand plopped down on the Steinway’s keyboard at the opening of Busoni’s arrangement of the Bach chaconne. It was, it turns out, the hallmark of her style, tending toward strong attack and full sound over subtlety and shaping of melodic lines. This is not the best way to play Bach, but it is a very good way to play Busoni’s thunderous refashioning of Bach, and it was thrilling to hear Montero maxed out on all those octaves. Montero’s hard-edged tone, tempestuous flair, and now wild hair often call to mind the elder pianist who has done so much to further her career, Martha Argerich — Liszt, Prokofiev, Stravinsky should be strong suits. There were sections that featured colorful contrasts of tone, but an overuse of the sustaining pedal muddied some of the finer fingerwork. While nothing is left to chance in the Bach-Busoni piece, the chaconne was at heart an improvisatory genre, and the remaining two pieces, sonatas by Chopin and Schumann, reinforced the theme of improvisation that ran through the program.

Photo of pianist Gabriela Montero courtesy of EMI Classics