MUSIC REVIEW : Neal Larrabee Opens Series at Cal State L.A.

Now in its fourth year, the List-Glenn Institute for piano and strings at Cal State Los Angeles began its 1990 concert series with a recital by pianist Neal Larrabee.

The University of Connecticut faculty member showed himself to be not only a superior technician but a strong, dynamic pianist with a sense of purpose as well.

Larrabee delivered an exciting, forward-moving account of Chopin’s B-flat-minor Sonata. He exercised sure control in the mercurial Scherzo, and great intelligence and sensitivity in the Funeral March.

In the final work, Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 12, Larrabee executed the sudden, dramatic contrasts effectively, and commanded the full-throttle passages with unflinching bravura: This is what the former student of Eugene List, Rosina Lhevinne and Martin Canin does most impressively.

Not that he was unable to play softly where needed. In the first two movements of Ravel’s “Gaspard de la Nuit,” Larrabee kept textures light and delicate, and showed great dynamic flexibility in the final “Scarbo.”

He seemed far less at home with the Beethoven work that opened the recital. The Variations in F, Opus 34, sounded inflexible and sterile. Larrabee seemed to be working very hard; every note seemed to be vitally important. Missing was a sense of continuity, a sense of spontaneity.

Larrabee brought elegance and style, however, to the Scarlatti sonata in D minor that served as the encore.