Ives finds splendid exponent in Svrcek

Now in its ninth season, the exhilarating Piano Spheres series continues to bring its growing audience rare, unusual and important works. In the process, that audience has been able to observe the steady and growing success of its five founders.

Susan Svrcek, who has consistently performed at higher and higher levels in her annual appearances on the series, returned Tuesday night to confront one of the peaks of the modern repertory, Charles Ives’ “Concord” or Second Sonata. She succeeded as thoroughly, conscientiously and satisfyingly as we might have predicted.

The hourlong, monstrously difficult Second Sonata has been considered a masterpiece since its first complete performance, 24 years after it was written. (The delay is explained by the work’s difficulty.) And it is not just a masterpiece in musical terms; it is also an American icon inspired by the writings of Emerson, Hawthorne, the Alcotts and Thoreau.

Svrcek met the daunting work -- a technical trial and a test of power and stamina (in scope and length it’s not unlike the massive sonatas of Beethoven and Brahms, and later Boulez) -- on its own terms. She easily ascended the numerous climaxes in the two lengthy opening movements, probing the gentle hills of the finale, conquering the thickets of notes, loud and soft, dense and denser, throughout. Her energy never flagged, and she kept Ives’ many songful lines flowing.

She was aided unobtrusively by violist Cynthia Fogg (who also skillfully turned pages -- no easy task) and flutist Dorothy Stone.

As preludes to the main business of the evening, Svrcek easily dispatched novelties, first Henry Cowell’s quirky “Hilarious Curtain Opener” and pensive “Ritournelle” from 1945, then William Grant Still’s practically unknown, neo-Impressionistic and mostly gentle “Seven Traceries” (1939).