Those who bought a ticket to hear Louis Lortie play on Saturday night must have been extremely glad they did so. The pianist from Montreal gave a recital at Carnegie Hall that was filled with beauty, brains, and virtuosity. His program consisted of music by three pianist-composers: Chopin, Liszt, and Adès.

That third guy is Thomas Adès, the British composer born in 1971. He has received raves all over the world, some of them deserved. He is now Carnegie Hall’s composerin-residence. And he is an excellent pianist (as he has proven in his own works and others’). If he lacked a compositional gift, he would surely have a career at the keyboard.

Mr. Lortie played two works by Mr. Adès, the first of them called “Darknesse Visible.” The title comes from Milton, and the piece treats a song by Dowland (“In Darkness Let Mee Dwell”). Mr. Adès wrote this when he was 20, and it is a wonderful exercise — an exercise that makes a good piece, too. Mr. Lortie played it with loving care, keeping all voices and registers in mind.

The other Adès piece on the program was “Traced Overhead,” from 1996. This is typical Adès: playful, inventive, and canny. Mr. Adès seems to be writing according to a code known chiefly to him. This piece happens to require some virtuosity, which Mr. Lortie could easily provide. His fluidity of technique was greatly beneficial. He floated across the keyboard, as he would in Debussy — or Chopin, or Liszt.

Incidentally, Mr. Lortie used sheet music in the Adès pieces, though he did not in the others. It’s always nice when you can memorize the contemporary — so many don’t.

There were two Liszt works on the program, the first of them the old wizard’s treatment of Wagner’s “Tannhäuser” overture. Decades later, Liszt would become Wagner’s father-in-law. Mr. Lortie intoned the “Tannhäuser” theme beautifully, and the flashy stuff to come was no problem for him. We heard those delightful shimmering effects that Liszt recreated from Wagner’s score. Mr. Lortie could not quite keep the piece free of bombast, but that is sort of baked in the cake.

Most important, he gave us something of the excitement that Liszt’s own first audiences must have felt — at getting a pianistic taste of a new and dazzling opera.

The second Liszt work was “Vallée d’Obermann” from “Years of Pilgrimage” (Swiss branch). Mr. Lortie breathed and thought with Liszt – traveled with him, so to speak. He was a model of tasteful virtuosity, and, indeed, this was some of the most beautiful Liszt playing you can ever hope to hear. Mr. Lortie joins his fellow Montrealer Marc-André Hamelin, the Frenchman Jean-Yves Thibaudet, and a couple of others in a special group: They are the champion Lisztians of today.

And Monsieur Chopin? He, too, was represented in two works, beginning with the Nocturne in B major, Op. 62, No. 1. This is one of the best of the composer’s 21 nocturnes, and one of the best pieces he ever wrote. With its abundant filigree, it requires the touch of a butterfly, and a very fleet one — and Mr. Lortie has that. Of at least equal importance, he played with a naturalness and honesty of expression.

Then he went right into the last work on the program, Chopin’s Sonata No. 3 in B minor. I wish he had paused longer — even left the stage — because the one work is not a prelude to the other, no matter the similarity of keys. In any case, Mr. Lortie showed the qualities he had shown all evening long: poise, grace, phenomenal agility. He allowed light to shine through this music. There was not an ounce of fat on it, and, at the same time, it was deprived of no richness, beauty, or poetry. Mr. Lortie knows that Romanticism does not mean license.

You could lodge some complaints: The Scherzo could have had more intensity, even some flash. The sublime E-major part of the Largo could have been more savored (when it was semi-rushed through). The Finale could have had more abandon, more urgency, and it was a touch overpedaled. But this was a top-notch account of a great sonata.

Believe it or not, the best playing of the night was yet to come: Mr. Lortie played two encores, both from Liszt — his statement on the “Evening Star” song from “Tannhäuser” and “Un sospiro.” These were surpassingly beautiful, to use a word I have used all review long. Beautiful and stupendous. Mr. Lortie made his exit looking quite satisfied, as well he should have been.