The other pianists of the younger generation will simply have to move over to make room for Kemal Gekic. The Croatian-born artist, now 38, offered his underheralded and often incendiary San Francisco recital debut Saturday evening at the Herbst Theatre, under the auspices of Four Seasons Concerts; his is a name and talent to remember.

The ponytail and casual outfit suggested a contemporary sensibility, but make no mistake: This is a virtuoso of the old school. Like Ivo Pogorelich before him, Gekic earned his reputation by losing, rather than winning, a prestigious competition -- in his case, two, the Chopin International in Warsaw in 1985 and the Montreal International in 1988. His recordings are still few, though a live Yugoslavian recital on VAI Audio and his contribution to Naxos' continuing Liszt project are worth exploring.

Saturday's recital, at which one spotted none of this community's impresarial movers and shakers, impressed to a point. Manner rather than matter was the prevailing aesthetic for the evening, yet it was very much a manner that compels the listener. Range of repertoire did, however, present a problem: Gekic declined to perform any works later than Schumann, and even those were not top-rank.

Handel's Keyboard Suite No. 5 in E Minor and Beethoven's Sonata No. 14 in C- Sharp Minor, Op. 27 No. 2 ("Moonlight"), opened the evening on a conventional note. A short Chopin group (Nocturne in C Minor, Op. 48 No. 1, and Scherzo No. 1 in B Minor, Op. 20) preceded the Schumann. A series of Liszt transcriptions and a tremendous encore seemed to engage the pianist's imagination most completely.

What one responded to, despite the sometimes recalcitrant instrument, was the sheer beauty of the playing. Gekic relishes a singing quality and evidently feels no need to break with his aesthetic to make a point, no need to highlight a passage with ungainly attacks.

Further, he commands a range of dynamics that takes listeners by surprise. To encounter the first movement of the "Moonlight" arising from the keyboard like an exhalation is a rare and wonderful experience. That Gekic uses dynamics as an essential building block in his architecture rivets the attention. This was a performance rooted in contrasts. There were moments of self-effacing perversity in the Allegretto, but the crisp chording and whirlwind tempo of the concluding Presto agitato sealed the argument.

Gekic's Handel is what one might expect from a pianist with a 19th century orientation. Extensive pedaling in the Prelude cloyed, and one noted a tendency to blunt rhythmic figures in the dancey Courante and to split chords, too. Yet, in the Air and Variations (the familiar "Harmonious Blacksmith"), Gekic festooned the melodic line with embellishments that sounded utterly persuasive.

The Chopin and Schumann, however, catered to the pianist's excesses. Gekic favored dreamy phrasing over cogency for the Nocturne, and the poetic impulse dominated at the expense of structure. The urgent dispatch of the Scherzo made partial amends.

Schumann's "Presto passionato" is the rejected finale of the Sonata No. 2 in G Minor, Op. 22, and Gekic served notice of why the composer discarded it. The onerous pyrotechnical demands were met in a dazzling outburst of staccato passagework, but this is a schizoid piece at best. The melting legato in the Op. 28 "Romanza" imposed its own logic.

But then came the Liszt arrangements, a repertoire that engages Gekic to the point of inebriation. The reworkings of Rossini's "Soirees musicales" are savory, witty affairs, and the pianist relished every last flight of fancy. He sustained a subtle barcarole rhythm in "La Gita in Gondola." He also tantalized his listeners with "La Danza," that much-loved Neapolitan tarantella, resisting a full statement of the theme until the audience virtually cried "uncle."

Liszt's keyboard transcriptions of Paganini's "Grandes Etudes" (Nos. 2 and 3) were delivered with a mixture of extreme articulation and sheer elan. Yet they little prepared one for Gekic's unannounced encore, the Liszt arrangement of Rossini's "Guillaume Tell" Overture, not a precis but the entire 13-minute work. Here, Gekic was completely at home, introducing the ranz des vaches theme with insidious charm and storming his way through the "Lone Ranger" finale with all stops out. The Steinway survived, but this is not something I would advise trying at home.