“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.