Brussilovsky, Levitsky Form Technical Match in Duo Recital

IRVINE — Ukranian-born violinist Alexandre Brussilovsky joined Leonid Levitsky for the third installment of the Newport Beach Recital Series on Tuesday night at the Irvine Barclay Theatre. On a technical level, the two communicated a degree of comfort that might be expected from childhood friends--having met as 13-year-olds at a Moscow school for gifted children.

In their program of familiar baroque and 20th century pieces, the duo displayed a virtuosic level of facility and synchronic ensemble that was particularly successful in some of the faster movements: bright, crisp and energetic for the Allegros of J. S. Bach’s Sonata No. 3 for Violin and Piano in E, BWV 1016; angular and exciting for the Scherzo of Prokofiev’s adaptation of his Sonata for Flute and Piano in D, Opus 94.

But balance skewed when interpretative depth was required, with the pianist providing the larger supplies of flexibility, subtlety and profundity. Brussilovsky offered monochromatic solidity in place of intimacy and exploration, drawing generous sound quality from his instrument--built in 1747 by Nicola Gagliano--but few gradations of color or dynamics.

Levitsky, artistic director of the series, shored up his end with sophisticated intricacies of shading and pacing as filtered through a mature understanding of styles (although he favored some juicy romanticism in the baroque work).

The pianist projected mystery, substance and a sense of inevitable direction in the closing Allegro con brio of Prokofiev’s composition, applied a jazzy elasticity to his tempo in blues-inspired passages of Ravel’s Sonata for Violin and Piano in G and lent steamy urbanity to Brussilovsky’s stiff foray into a “Porgy and Bess” arrangement by Jascha Heifetz.

As encore, they finished the evening with Czech composer Zdenek Fibich’slight “Poem.”