THE NEW YORK TIMES
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 1996
A Debut With Roots Early in the Century
Marat Bisengaliev, violinist Carnegie Weill Recital Hall
Marat Bisengaliev, a violinist who was born in Kazakhstan, trained in Moscow and has won several inter¬national competitions, balanced the sober and the frivolous in his New York debut recital on Monday evening. He and his attentive, supportive pianist, John Lenahan, saw to the grand statements first, opening the program with a regal account of Bach's Sonata No. 2 in A (B.W.V. 1015) and moving from there into the darker, more starkly emotional realm of the Brahms Sonata No. 3 in D minor (Op. 108).
In the Bach, Mr. Bisengaliev showed off an opulent, appealingly varied sound, and he built on that quality extensively in the lighter part of the program. But the Brahms was the real centerpiece of the concert. Mr. Bisengaliev caught the gravity and passion of the first movement and presented it without overstatement or sentimentality. He played the Adagio with an exquisite delicacy and warmth, and showed an impressive fleetness in the two fast movements that close the piece.
The rest of the program was given over to virtuosic bonbons, among them the Kreisler arrangement of one of Falla's Spanish Dances, the Tchaikovsky "Melodie" (Op. 42, No. 3), Sarasate's "Zigeunerweisen" and a pair of dazzlers by Wieniawski. Mr. Bisengaliev plays this music with great flair, unhesitatingly embellishing most of the pieces with slides and broad coloristic effects. At 35, he has taken to heart a style of playing that was a hallmark of violin virtuosity early in the century, and is only now coming back into favor after several decades in the shadow of a more drily rational style.
ALLAN KOZINN
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