Formidable artists are flooding the Bay Area scene these days, the second one this week being another pianist, Natasha Paremski. She bit off one of the most demanding programs imaginable, all tucked into her incendiary hour of earthquake magnitude linking both Ravel’s “Gaspard de la nuit” and Balakirev’s “Islamey,” a dual feat comparable to conquering both poles in the same week. All with supersonic speed and Olympic power.

The tone-painting of Ravel’s opus is well-known, comprising a sea-sprite (Ondine, with the themes beneath treble trills suggesting surface waves), a measure of Edgar Allan Poe (in “le gibet,” “the gallows”) and that technical fire of the fast-racing “Scarbo” finale with its machine-gun tattoo of vehement repeats. Here Paremski was powerful and formidable, her waist-length tresses flying so stormily, I wondered if she could still see the keyboard.

The Balakirev “Islamey” may only be an eight-minute wonder, but it’s deemed downright unplayable by many musicians, including the composer (disqualifying himself) after launching it in 1869. Paremski played it forcefully, speedily and triumphantly, shaking a Herbst Theatre rafter or two, and deterring any of us amateurs in the house of trying it at home.

Ravel wrote his work to be yet more difficult than “Islamey.” The judgment is out as to which is the greater challenge. But as “Gaspard” is three times as long, it may get the nod for sheer exhaustive energy.

Paremski had opened with the far more laid back 20 sections of Prokofiev’s “Visions fugitives,” charming vignettes for keyboard to be taken on in any order or dose. Her approach was accurate but a mite too aloof for my taste. These “Visions” offer lyrical flights in contrasting sections. I would quibble with the published order, ending with a Lento reverie that suggests anti-climax more than anything.

Any real hope that Cuban-born jazz pianist Alfredo Rodriguez would dwell on these in the advertised “call-and-response” segment were dashed. Apart from opening figures relating to Ravel’s “Ondine,” Rodriguez embarked on works by himself and Cuban forerunners and played on well into the night with great fluency, ingratiating jazz inflections and endless personal mannerisms. If this combo brainstorm of Melanie Smith, the president of San Francisco Performances, never quite jelled, at least it was a bold idea worth trying, working to enliven the often dreary/repetitive old format of the solo recital.

Both the Cuban-born Rodriguez and the Moscow-born Paremski had done part of their studies at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

S.F. Performances in varied guest attractions, presenting pianists Paremski and Rodriguez sequentially in the SFP season-opening recital Sept. 27, at Herbst Theatre, S.F. For SFP info: (415) 392-2545, or go online.

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