Alessandro Taverna first got himself noticed in the UK at the 2009 Leeds Piano Competition with a performance of Chopin's E minor Concerto that was exceptional for its strength and grace. Many people expected him to walk off with first prize, though he ultimately came third. Three years on, Taverna's somewhat belated Wigmore debut confirmed those initial impressions of a serious and potentially major talent. This was a tremendously exciting evening.

It began rather awkwardly, however, with a heavy-handed performance of Bach's Fifth English Suite, in which a sense of ruminative introspection intruded on the music's linear clarity. But the weightiness that seemed unsuited to Bach worked surprisingly well in Mendelssohn's Third Sonata. The piece is usually played with some restraint, when in fact it's a big, at times iconoclastic work that aspires to high drama as well as lyrical refinement. Taverna then brought the first half to a close with Regard de l'Esprit de Joie from Messiaen's Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant-Jésus, played with an ecstatic violence that took everyone's breath away.

The dawning realisation that Taverna has the potential to become a major interpreter of 20th-century music was borne out by what came after the interval. He hurled out Ligeti's Etude No 13, L'Escalier du Diable, with a dexterity that was almost shocking. Scriabin's Tenth Sonata, which followed, was all ravishing colours and intense sensuality. Finally he gave us Stravinsky's Trois Mouvements de Pétrouchka: dazzlingly done, yet mining the music's emotional depths. His encores – Dohnányi's transcription of Strauss's Schatz-Walzer and Friedrich Gulda's jazz-influenced PlayPianoPlay – brought the already enraptured audience to its feet.