As a prominent member of the post-1945 European avant-garde, Pierre Boulez was eager to argue in favor of the new over the old. Even mentor figures such as Olivier Messiaen, or pioneering antecedents like Arnold Schoenberg, had their relevancy questioned. Boulez’s music was similarly uncompromising and rigorous from the start. After a phase as enfant terrible, he settled into the role of conductor and music director, including a somewhat tumultuous tenure as music director at the New York Philharmonic in the 1970s. He still championed the new music that suited his taste but grumbled less about the standard repertoire.

Boulez wrote several pieces for piano, three sonatas and a few smaller works, and they are among the most highly regarded music in his oeuvre. Taka Kigawa played all of them on September 7 at Manhattan’s Le Poisson Rouge. LPR has been the site of a number of Kigawa’s ambitious programs, including memorable performances of Ligeti’s fiercely difficult piano etudes. (Ligeti and Boulez were both on offer for his appearance there in 2021.) A charismatic performer, he has built a following at the venue, and even when the music seems daunting, people come to hear him play.

The program was over 90 minutes in duration and every piece was challenging. Even Boulez’s miniatures, like the dazzling Douze Notations (1945), 12 characterful movements of contrasting character, each only 12 measures long, defy the bravest of interpreters. So does Une page d’éphéméride (2005), a whirlwind tour of his most frequently used ideas.

As if programming just one sonata wasn’t already enough of a herculean feat, Kigawa took on all three—from memory. It’s one thing to memorize Beethoven and Brahms, where there are recognizable themes and overarching forms. Boulez often sought to thwart expectations, relying on angular gestures and subverting traditional structure. Even his Second Sonata (1948), where there are four movements seemingly aligned to romantic-sonata parameters—fast, slow, scherzo, and a multifaceted finale—is deliberately designed, to paraphrase the composer, to blow up norms.

Eschewing chronological order, Kigawa took listeners on a tour that highlighted the varied nature of Boulez’s output. He started with one of the late pieces, Incises (1994/2001), in which the elements are distilled into a few different types of gesture, trills, quicksilver runs, arpeggios, and thick chords, all of which appear in other compositions, but often in more discontinuous and loquacious fashion. Incises was originally conceived as a competition piece, but was elaborated upon over time, also spawning a chamber piece, sur Incises (1998) that added two more pianos, three harps, and pitched percussion to create a reverberant atmosphere.

Boulez was an inveterate tinkerer, revising a number of compositions throughout his life. The Third Sonata, which began its life in 1959, was left unfinished, with only three of its five projected sections completed. It is likely the most challenging of Boulez’s pieces, both for performer and listener. Virtuosic yet fragmentary, at once digressive and powerful in expression, it is the zenith of complexity in Boulez’s music. There is a measure of freedom in the piece too, with the pianist getting to choose the order of some passages. It contrasts well with the First Sonata (1946), ebullient in demeanor and indebted to his forebears, Messiaen and Anton Webern chief among them.

Kigawa isn’t the only contemporary classical performer to appear at LPR. International Contemporary Ensemble, ACME, and JACK Quartet are among others who count the venue as part of their stomping grounds. The hybrid nature of LPR means that one night an indie rock band performs, DJ sets abound throughout the calendar, and burgeoning acts as well as those downsizing from stadium tours are on offer. LPR was well attended for this event, and the audience didn’t dwindle after intermission. Indeed, it seemed to relish the virtuosity on display, at the concert’s conclusion calling Kigawa back for multiple bows. In this era of particularly straitened circumstances in the arts, maybe inhabiting a scene at the right size venue is a plausible way forward. Kigawa clearly seems to be making it work.