MUSIC REVIEW : Piano Works by Wuorinen, Ravel, Beach

Romantic late-19th Century Lisztian rhetoric and abrasive late 20th-Century motorism make an odd pairing. But the combination worked convincingly when Alan Feinberg played at the Arnold Schoenberg Institute on Wednesday night.

The American pianist, making his third appearance at the USC facility, offered Charles Wuorinen’s complex, belligerently atonal and hyperactive Third Sonata (1986) to end his recital, then immediately followed it with an encore in Mrs. H.H.A. (Amy) Beach’s “Dreaming,” a Schumannesque nocturne of stunning beauties and virtuosic bent, written in 1892.

Feinberg’s versatility, already proven in the earlier part of this program--when he played three pieces by Ravel, surrounded by works of George Edwards, Robert Helps and Iannis Xenakis--made this juxtaposition seem natural. He gave each composer his/her due, made the appropriate stylistic differentiations and delivered each musical dialect in the right accent.

Wuorinen’s sonata, written for Feinberg--and which the pianist described as “a little bit of New York . . . 20 different people speaking 20 different languages, all rushing to get in the subway”--is a construct of nervous hostility, in its outer movements a perpetual motion of urban dissonance. Mrs. Beach’s ballade-like Opus 15, No. 3, deals in an earlier sophistication, but one ostensibly foreign to Wuorinen’s. The two composers share only their earnest Americanness.

The New York-based pianist made the most of his opportunities here, as well as in Edwards’ provocative “Suave Mari Magno,” which Feinberg translated as “Over Calm Seas.” He also gave satisfying attention to Helps’ “Trois Hommages” and to Xenakis’ brief, disturbing and delightful “Hommage a Ravel.”

His playing of the French composer’s “Menuet Antique” Prelude (1913) and “Ondine” suffered only from a lack of the coloristic variety that another piano might have been able to provide. It is time the Schoenberg Institute got another keyboard instrument, preferably one with another brand name.