“THE AMERICAN ROMANTIC.” Works by Amy Beach,...

“THE AMERICAN ROMANTIC.” Works by Amy Beach, Louis Moreau Gottschalk and Robert Helps. Alan Feinberg, piano. Argo 430 330-2 (CD). In a gentle burst of enterprise, Alan Feinberg explores some shaded, nostalgic American side roads of piano literature. Beach’s “Dreaming” is almost a rip-off of Liszt’s “Liebestraum,” Feinberg’s teacher Helps mostly pays his respects to the Romantic past, and except for a bit of wildly elaborate patriotic fervor (“God Save the Queen”), we hear Gottschalk’s less-interesting salon manner. While this is mostly third-rate music, it receives first-rate performances, with appropriately heaping helpings of rubato.

PICKER: “The Encantadas,” “Romances and Interludes,” “Old and Lost Rivers.” John Gielgud, narrator; Robert Atherholt, oboe. Houston Symphony conducted by Christoph Eschenbach. Virgin Classics VC 7 91162-2 (CD). For Tobias Picker, bigger is not necessarily better in this mini-survey of his recent work. In “The Encantadas,” he accompanies the recitation of a Herman Melville text with a faceless, varied backdrop that comes to life only in a mock waltz describing a flock of penguins. “Romances and Interludes” has an interesting premise--juxtaposing Schumann’s Three Romances for oboe and piano with some contemporary thoughts--but Picker’s own ideas are either too harsh or they shyly back away from their jazzy implications. The peaceful, steady tread of the brief “Old and Lost Rivers” goes over better than either of the larger works.