A few months after Boris Giltburg won the Queen Elisabeth Competition in 2013, the Moscow-born pianist made a striking Washington debut at the Phillips Collection. His latest appearance in the area, presented Saturday evening at Columbia’s Horowitz Center by Chamber Music Maryland, offered a chance to hear how the Israeli virtuoso, now 40, has grown as an artist.

In the concert’s first half, Giltburg reprised music he played at his debut, Rachmaninoff’s Ten Preludes, Op. 23. Technical brilliance still abounded, right from Prelude No. 1, with the forlorn right-hand melody crossing from above to play below its oscillating chordal accompaniment in the left hand. The fanfare-like No. 2 roiled almost ceaselessly, with melodic details carefully picked out of the middle of the texture.

Interpretative depth still lacked in slower pieces like No. 3, No. 4, and No. 6, where a whisper-like touch felt unsatisfying, until a thicker layering of voices provided greater interest. The most virtuosic pieces, in sequence from No. 7 to No. 9, revealed the most exciting playing, with swirling cascades of notes and massive volume to provide dramatic climaxes. Giltburg played the noble melody of No. 10, returning to a slower tempo, with elegant sophistication, in a highlight of the set.

The surprise of the evening came in Schumann’s Papillons, by far the least technically challenging piece on the program. At just 21 years old, Schumann composed this suite of dances, as if they were the music played at the masked ball depicted in Jean Paul’s novel The Awkward Age. Giltburg captured the youthful fancy of the piece, enlivening each waltz or polonaise with mercurial rubato and a bewildering variety of touch.

The first polonaise, the fifth dance in the set, marked a sort of poetic interlude among the louder waltzes around it, as did the forlorn seventh piece. The whimsical turns of the ninth piece, with its bubbly staccato middle section, added to the sense of emotional contrasts, like Paul’s youthful characters pinballing through an exhilarating evening. The other polonaise, the eleventh piece, bounced with playful energy in its dissonant grace notes, all beautifully shaped.

The end of the ball is announced in the final movement by Schumann’s quotation of the “Großvatertanz,” traditionally played to mark the end of a wedding party or other celebration (and familiar from The Nutcracker). Giltburg played this section with admirable solemnity; as Schumann nostalgic waltz was layered over it. Giltburg’s right hand subtly rang out the six chimes of the clock, tolling the end of the party.

Giltburg took up the concert’s most daunting challenge in a daring rendition of Liszt’s Piano Sonata in B Minor. He set a pensive mood by sitting in silence for a long pause before beginning the work, allowing the audience to quiet itself. From the carefully placed octave Gs that open the piece, neither clipped nor accented, Giltburg crafted a thoughtfully conceived interpretation of this towering work. Sadly, the audience did not return the musician’s consideration, as repeated cell phone rings disturbed many of the sonata’s softest moments.

Each of Liszt’s themes took on a vivid characterization in Giltburg’s hands: the smoky, enigmatic descending line that opened the work, the repeated-note motif like snarling laughter, and the rising hymn tune of resurrection. As Giltburg said in his concise and well-informed introduction to the work, Liszt combined many forms, overlapping with one another, in this single-movement work. Giltburg’s interpretation, carefully paced and scaled in dynamic gradations, clearly reflected his thoughts about the story that Liszt was telling.

Giltburg can produce an extraordinary impact with his loudest sound at the piano. At times, the Hamburg Steinway truly thundered but in a way that felt deliberately voiced rather than merely loud. His virtuosic gifts and his interpretative dramatic sense, both reflections of the character of Liszt as pianist, carried this work through its long arc, sometimes at blistering tempi.

For encores, Giltburg returned to the evening’s first composer, performing two of Rachmaninoff’s later Preludes, Op. 32. After the Op. 23 set, completed in 1903, and the famous “Bells of Moscow” prelude from a decade earlier, Rachmaninoff completed his cycle of preludes in all the major and minor keys in 1910. Giltburg gave a pastoral reading of No. 5 in G major, with undulating quintuplets in the left hand, followed by a restless, melancholy performance of the composer’s penultimate prelude, No. 12 in G-sharp minor.

Chamber Music Maryland presents the Italian Saxophone Quartet in two programs 4 p.m. April 5 and 6. chambermusicmaryland.org

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