Intercalations Review

Richard Wilson's ''Intercalations''

It functions essentially as a piano sonata and encompasses a discursive, contrapuntal opening movement; a fleet, evanescent scherzo that calls for crossed hands and an insistent drumming on single notes; an introspective third movement, and a flashy, chiming finale. Mr. Wilson's idiom is highly chromatic with strong tonal underpinnings; ''Intercalations'' is a virtuosic and thoroughly attractive addition to the repertory.

Mr. Newman's set of variations, although expertly written for the keyboard, seemed rather dry and formulaic Wednesday night, really assuming a life of its own only in the concluding fugue, which had a palpable, hyperkinetic grandeur.

Ms. Mills's playing was always sensitive, characterized by a big, carefully controlled and often lustrous sound and secure passagework. That said, Mozart's Fantasie in C minor (K. 396) was rather charmless and dynamically constrained. One suspects that other pianists might have brought a greater ferocity to the finale of Mr. Wilson's work, and the miniatures in Schumann's ''Fantasiestucke,'' while graceful, were not the charged, acutely expressive little miracles they have sometimes seemed.

Tim Page

A version of this article appears in print on Nov. 24, 1986,