MUSIC REVIEW : Alexei Sultanov Begins California Tour

SAN DIEGO — Still cute, still short, still a dynamo of a young pianist, Alexei Sultanov remains the model of an international competition winner.

The gold medalist in the 1989 Van Cliburn Competition returned to California Tuesday night, beginning a short tour through the state just four months after his West Coast debut at the Ambassador Auditorium.

The differences between his recital at the College Avenue Baptist Church and the earlier event in Pasadena were minor. Instead of sonatas by Mozart and Beethoven in the first half, he played sonatas by Haydn and Scriabin. And, since visiting here in June, the Soviet citizen has turned 20.

His positive qualities were reconfirmed before a large audience in the cavernous Baptist church. He possesses a technique of wide range, deep resources, startling contrast--he gets around the keyboard with demonic efficiency. He has the beginnings of a strong and faceted temperament.

On the other hand, his youthful fire sometimes burns up the music it ought to illuminate--there is not a great deal of reflection or savoring in his performances. And, clarity aside--at even the fastest tempos, he seldom blurs the musical line--a kind of frenzy characterizes all his readings, whatever the historic style.

Still, as he showed in a program beginning with Haydn’s E-flat sonata, Chopin’s B-flat-minor Scherzo and Scriabin’s brief Fifth Sonata and ending with the Seventh Sonata by Prokofiev and Liszt’s “Mephisto” Waltz, Sultanov remains the quintessential winner: virtuosic, musically accomplished, modest in behavior, thoroughly personable. He should go far.

Today, he goes to Fresno.