Maverick Concerts programmed a piano-palooza this weekend. On Saturday, Singaporean pianist Margaret Leng Tan treated the hall to an evening of contemporary works for piano and toy piano. Then on Sunday, the young American pianist Reed Tetzloff filled the hall with some familiar and rarely-heard music.

Tan has been known throughout her long career as the Queen of the Toy Piano. She is the first artist to use the toy piano, and is a virtuoso on this unusual instrument. Her concert at the Maverick was titled “And No Birds Sing: A Requiem for the Earth.” In order to reach the beating heart of something – anything, really, a symphony, a body, a sadness – someone — anyone, anyone, really – a chef, a radio host, a surgeon – must be at the cutting edge. This is where Ms. Leng Tan has placed herself, and a listener is responsible for going along with her. Saturday at the Maverick, we heard music that doesn’t operate according to the familiar laws we are accustomed to. It was not for the faint of heart. There is no beginning, middle, or end in such pieces. There are just the sounds. We do not accept or reject ― we just listen. Each sound exists by virtue of its own merits. Neither dissonant nor consonant, the octaves and chords and scales and trills and arpeggios are simply present. You simply hear them.

Tan used Maverick’s staunch Yamaha as well as two toy pianos with various percussion instruments attached. The titles made clear Tan’s message about the future of the Earth. To Stare Astonished at the Sea, by Lois V. Vierk, was played directly on the strings, i.e. inside the piano, after it had been “prepared” with various objects. Somei Satoh’s And No Birds Sing (The title is from a bleak poem by John Keats.)  was more accessible, its untidy chords placed with great care by Ms. Leng Tan. Shattered Apparitions of the Western Wind, composed in 2013 by Annie Gosfield, used a recorded accompaniment, rolling out the sounds of a ruinous hurricane, while Tan performed a truly pianistic solo part.

Tan opened the second half on two toy pianos, which had been set up with various percussive items. Coney Island Sous L’Eau (Coney Island Under Water), by Michael Wookey, deployed a colorful wind-up device that supplied a rhythmic center, mourning the demise of what had been a happy, boisterous carnival. Paradise Lost was composer Erik Griswolds’ reflection on the devastating brushfires in Australia and California. The piece was created by superimposing a musical staff on a map of the two areas. It created actual drama and moments of true loveliness.

Tan closed with John Cage’s 0’00” which involved her working with a rubber stamp on a pile of papers, which she distributed among the audience at the end. The paper turned out to be a paragraph deploring the ivory industry and the fate of the African elephants.

Maverick audience responded to the whole concert with interested curiosity and enthusiastic affection.

On Sunday afternoon, the young American virtuoso Reed Tetzloff wowed the Maverick audience, filling the rustic splendor with playing the like of which we have not heard since the days of Horowitz and André Watts. Opening with Ravel’s charming Menuet Antique, he made it clear from the git-go that we were in the hands of a master. A glorious set of rarely heard, and simply wonderful six Impromptus of Gabriel Fauré followed. Tetzloff dished up the highly ornamented lines, the quick changes of tempo with fleet, limber delicacy and unassuming virtuosity. It was a surprise and a delight. In Philip Lasser’s Sonata, “Les Hiboux Blancs” (The White Owls), Tezloff brought out the many quiet moments and demonstrated the usefulness of crossing hands. Tetzloff took Robert Schumann’s Op. 9 massive Carnaval at a slightly faster tempo than we have heard, but made it sound inevitable. With perfect voicing and entirely convincing changes of tempo and volume, he brilliantly conceived and delineated each familiar character.

Mary Fairchild lives in Rosendale, New York, after a long career as a host at WQXR, WNYC, WMHT (Schenectady), and WPLN (Nashville). For some 20 years Mary wrote program notes for Vladimir Feltsman’s PianoSummer at New Paltz. Before being called by Kalliope, the Muse of Eloquence and of Writing About Music, she worked as a financial editor and manager of investor relations in Wall Street.