Joshua Bell is one of the darlings of the chamber-music world, with a full house Wednesday night at the Houston Fine Arts Center to prove it. The violinist appeared with pianist Simon Mulligan as part of the Friends of Chamber Music season.

At 32, Bell is already a recognized master of the instrument. To watch him play is to see a study in control - so much so that at times he seems almost remote, even aloof. The music of the first half of his program contributed to this appearance.

Aaron Copland's Sonata of 1942 is not exactly standard recital fare. Too bad, because without it some of the composer's more popular works hang in a kind of limbo when it comes to context. In the case of the violin sonata, much of the middle movement seemed almost as though the composer was dropping individual notes, like pebbles into a lake, to see where the ripples might lead. It doesn't exactly call attention to the performers, either. But the final result is a remarkable whole.

Johannes Brahms' Sonata No. 3 in D Minor, Op. 108, is one of the standard works and a welcome hearing Bell gave it, too. Again his concentration and control were much in evidence, even in the more extroverted music of the last movement, marked presto agitato. But here listeners could appreciate his flair and exuberance, understated histrionically as they were.

For his second half, Bell announced a change in the program, an addition: George Gershwin's 'Three Preludes' as arranged for violin by no less than Jascha Heifetz. Great fun and a great lead-in to Maurice Ravel's great Sonata with its blues middle movement, which, if not quite as sexy as 'Tzigane,' still has a lot of insinuating melodic drive. Bell also added a Romance by Clara Schumann, again not your regular recital fare.

Throughout Mulligan proved an able partner to Bell. Given the audience response, the Friends of Chamber Music should begin work to bring the pair back to Denver for another concert.