The South Korean-born and Russian-educated pianist Dong-Hyek Lim was quite technically impressive in his New York debut at the Walter Reade Theater on Sunday. Before the recital, I was skeptical that any single pianist could pull off a keyboard version of Ravel’s cacophonous “La Valse.” “La Valse” for piano is a reversal of the norm: Many of this composer’s orchestral works are transcriptions of his shimmering piano music, but in this case we have a transposition in the opposite direction. There is a two-piano version extant, fashioned for the rehearsals of the original ballet, which will be performed next week at Lincoln Center by Emanuel Ax and Yefim Bronfman. But I doubt that this current solo arrangement will catch on with too many of Mr. Lim’s colleagues. It is simply beyond their reach.

The challenge was boldly met, however. Mr. Lim can handle the knottiest of technical problems by virtue of his disciplined approach to fingering. The separation of left and right hand sonority was exceptionally clear: He expertly glided through various arpeggios, chordal transformations, and glissandi, each of his digits as supple as an ice dancer. At least in this rendition, there were not too many notes in Ravel’s apocalyptic vision of the spiraling decline of civilization.

Throughout this program, the technical prowess of the artist was unquestionable. In the four Schubert impromptus that opened the recital, I found myself taking note of several key strengths, among them subtly executed dynamic changes in the left hand in the C Minor. Interpretively, however, the effort was at best quite far from my own sense of proper explication and at worst simply uninformed.

Mr. Lim has a very gentle conception of the E Flat Major that can certainly be considered as legitimate. He also has an ironclad technique that allows the flowing water effect to come through nicely, if a bit stiffly. However, he sacrifices virtually all of the dramatic tension which, for me, constitutes the core of the piece. The G Flat Major exhibited that Mr. Lim is all of 20. He seemed impatient and a little cold. He rather missed the unhurried and expansive nature of the composer so eloquently expressed in the score.

Perhaps my favorite part of this recital was the honest and forthright reactions of the young and undiplomatic aspirant. He glared out at the audience when some members dared to attempt applause at the end of the first movement of the Chopin B Minor Sonata, expressing justifiable annoyance at the breaking of his concentration. Mr. Lim has not yet learned the finer points of politesse and concert performer etiquette and I found this extremely refreshing. His abrupt ending in the Ravel led instantaneously to his abandoning of the stage, and this, too, seemed charmingly ingenuous. He has yet to learn how to curry favor.

The program notes say that Mr. Lim studied in Russia for some years, but one would never know it from the performance of the Chopin. Apparently rubato is not a part of this pianist’s armamentarium. This is a real shame, as the resulting performance was rather wooden, a by rote recreation of the printed score that anyone who knows the penchant of this particular composer for writing between the lines will recognize as superficial.

Of course, Dong-Hyek Lim is very, very young. If he has within him the seeds of poetry, then they have not yet been given the opportunity to blossom. Perhaps it is time for him to emerge from the practice room for a while and learn to live a little.

***

Composers and poets who die young enter posterity at their most passionate. The enduring popularity of Jim Morrison and Kurt Cobain centers around their images as forever young and rebellious, concerned infinitely with teenaged angst. It is rare that a work of early ardor and conflict is resurrected by its creator and forged into an even stronger mature composition; Many writers and composers rather reject the sins of their youth as they waddle into middle-aged decrepitude. But this process of rediscovery was miraculously eternal in Brahms.

A full 20 years after he composed deeply personal music for both of his beloved Schumanns, he reached into his secret drawer and relived those awful yet wonderful times of doubt, love, and despair. The result, the Piano Quartet in C Minor, is one of the most affecting pieces in all of the literature and never fails to ignite a firestorm of emotion in its listeners.

Brahms himself expressed to a friend that this was a portrait of a man at the end of his rope, who stands at the precipice and agonizes over whether to jump. He wrote to his publisher Fritz Simrock that the cover page should include a picture of the title character of Goethe’s “The Sorrows of Young Werther,” a Romantic figure also haunted by youthful passion, who employed the ultimate escape from an unrequited romance. Pairing this intense work on Saturday evening with the corresponding chamber piece of Max Reger emphasized the positively orchestral thickness of their respective instrumental writing. It was an intelligent continuation of the series “Brahms the Progressive” at Miller Theatre.

The relatively unknown Reger Piano Quartet in A Minor is indeed written in the same dense, contrapuntal style as the Brahms. It’s the sort of convoluted and labyrinthine piece that would drive a Wagnerian critic like George Bernard Shaw to drink. So the thesis that Reger is an epigone of Brahms is legitimate, although much of his Malthusian conception of compositional technique came from his training as an organist, a particularly non-Brahmsian activity. Although the programming this night may have been sound, the performance was fraught with problems.

The Jacques Thibaud String Trio was particularly unfocused in the Brahms. Violist Philip Douvier had trouble maintaining a simple rhythmic line for more than a few beats and as a result the propulsion for the quartet as a whole was often wayward. Violinist Burkhard Maiss had a charming tone but fell victim to the extremely bad habit of leaving his finger on the strings too long, thus producing an unwanted overtone on many occasions.

A strong case can be made for ranking the Andante from this heartfelt work as the most beautiful in all of chamber music and cellist Bogdan Jianu produced a reasonably elegiac tone for the main theme, but the other string players could not sustain such a trembling fragility. Pianist Max Levinson was a decided step above his mates, reminding of anecdotal reports that Brahms himself used to make mistakes on purpose rather than embarrass his chamber colleagues. But even Mr. Levinson could have been – should have been – considerably more poetic at the end of this movement, a conclusion that Robert Haven Schauffler called “The incomparable summary of the last page.”

***

My favorite Fidelio story is the one wherein ushers detained the offstage trumpeter and would not allow him to play his stirring fanfares at a Bruno Walter performance, but we don’t really have time for it today because there is so much to discuss about Thursday’s version by The Collegiate Chorale at Carnegie Hall.

This was a seriously abridged rendition, much of the action replaced by the narration of Roger Rees (Robin Colcord of “Cheers”). Besides sets and costumes, much of the elan vital of the piece was absent due to the constant stopping and starting in this “Classics Illustrated” comic-book adaptation. The fine Orchestra of St. Luke’s, after a rough-hewn and gritty performance of the overture (the “Fidelio” overture, not “Lenore” numbers one, two, or three), was reduced to accompanying these snippets at a low volume.

It was not a grand night for singing. For the amount of effort put in by Deborah Voigt, she might as well have been portraying La Sonnambula rather than Leonore. Her normally stentorian voice was decidedly dusky this evening and in big moments, such as her “Abscheulicher! Wo eilst du hin?” she hit the high note when it really counted, but missed several of the tops of the preliminary sections.

Thomas Moser was hoarse for a good part of Act II and I could sympathize but not appreciate. Stanford Olsen and substitute Amy Burton were mostly inaudible, even though conductor Robert Bass kept his forces in dynamic check. Two singers were impressive throughout: James Morris was performing his first-ever Rocco and did so with fluidity and dignity, in the process being the only exponent of a clear and flowing legato line, and Tom Fox was superb as Don Pizzaro and the only participant who went the extra mile attempting to develop a character.

And what of the Collegiate Chorale itself? After all, this was their event. Well, they were excellent as usual, the fullest sound of any chorus in New York, but, except for the men doing brief cameos as soldiers or prisoners, they literally only sang together for the final five minutes or so. Perhaps next season they can stage a production of “Die Walkure” or “Siegfried” and stay home altogether.

For sheer inspiration, however, there is no work of music more powerful than “Fidelio.” It summons that sweetest sensation of all, the taste of freedom. Hearing it again, even in such an expurgated edition, makes me reflect on how delicious must be the current air in Afghanistan and Iraq.