Lucid, Clean Readings by Pianist Vicki Ray

In the regular world, piano recitals are forged from familiar elements--Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, et al. But PianoSpheres is another planet, where the unfamiliar is the air breathed.

Tuesday night in Pasadena’s Neighborhood Church, it was Vicki Ray’s turn in the PianoSpherian sun. Her program coupled rarely encountered pieces by well-known composers--Bartok, Messiaen, Britten--with new works by thirtysomethings Eve Beglarian, Shaun Naidoo and Arthur Jarvinen. It worked wonderfully.

Not the least because of Ray’s pianism. It is lucid and clean, and always sensitive to the demands of the music. The locally based pianist, a veteran in our new-music battles, refused to be the showman. In a program that required virtuoso chops, she ignored all opportunities for self-aggrandizement.

Bartok’s “Out of Doors,” from 1926, emerged with its pictures clearly wrought; we heard the backwaters of the “Barcarolla” and the dissonant fogs and Miroesque squiggles of the “Musiques Nocturnes” without exaggeration. The chiseled bird songs in Messiaen’s “Le Loriot” were carefully set in an Impressionist skyscape. Ray made a strong case for the little-known “Holiday Diary” by a 21-year-old Britten, a travelogue full of premonitions of “Peter Grimes.”

Jarvinen’s “The Meaning of the Treat” sounded improvisatory in a good way, following illogical impulses while periodically revisiting its main riff for sustenance. Naidoo’s “Bad Times Coming” paired synthesized techno-rock and thriller film music with piano styles ranging from Eubie Blake to Gershwin and Bartok--the pairings deliberately clashed, the rhythms tightly meshed. Both works were composed for Ray.

Beglarian’s “landscaping for privacy,” for speaker (Robin Lorentz) and piano, proved to be a car ride with an irritating passenger--the minimalistic piano purring brightly along, the speaker in platitudinous monologue.