"My Boy"

"Wait," said the visiting violinist when the British public cheered him five years ago. "Wait till you hear my boy." For the first time last week an audience outside Russia heard the "boy" play alongside his father. The family team: famed Soviet Violinist David Oistrakh, 52, and his fast-rising son Igor, 29.

On the stage of London's Royal Festival Hall, father and son appeared in sharp contrast. Playing a reddish Stradivarius, David was short, pudgy and genial; playing a yellowing Guarnerius, Igor was tall, sleek and reserved. For the most part, the carefully selected program of Bach chamber music served to contrast them even more clearly, identify each as a commanding solo artist. Although critics agreed that Igor still has a long way to go before he can challenge his father's mastery, the younger man's forceful, exuberant interpretation of the Concerto for Violin in E neatly counterbalanced David's melodic, subtle Concerto in A Minor.

In a majestic finish, Igor played first violin, David second, in the D Minor Concerto for Two Violins, and the contrasts suddenly seemed to disappear. At one point it seemed to listeners that the elder Oistrakh had the more penetrating, his son the more silvery, tone; but when the same passage recurred in the concerto, the two violinists seemed to have swapped tone colors and styles. Said the Daily Telegraph's David Cooper: "The two play not simply as one mind, but as one instrument." The Oistrakhs agreed. Said Igor: "We don't know or feel differences or similarities that others see in our work. When we play together, we are not father and son. We are musicians."

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