(3 of 4)
MAHLER: SEVENTH SYMPHONY (2 LPs; Columbia). This seldom-performed symphony is nicknamed "Song of Night" because its three middle movements are shadowy, dreamlike, predominantly sinister. Even the opening allegro seems to dissolve in twilight, and not till the fifth movement is there a bright, wild awakening after all the murky moodiness. Leonard Bernstein leads the New York Philharmonic with eerie tension and, finally, abandon.
HINDEMITH: CONCERT MUSIC FOR STRINGS AND BRASS (Seraphim). Conducted by the composer with the Philharmonia Orchestra, Concert Music shows Hindemith's preoccupation with rhythmic angularity and instrumental color—a jaunty string quartet bouncing along on a sea of brass. On side 2, Hindemith conducts his Symphony in B Flat for Concert Band, with soft woodwinds tempering the brass.
SMETANA: MY COUNTRY (2 LPs; Crossroads). In a burst of patriotic pride, the 50-year-old Czech composer began this cycle of six symphonic poems dedicated to the city of Prague. He was deaf by the time they were first performed together in 1882, but his work was triumphantly acclaimed. The second tone poem, celebrating the River Moldau, has become world-famous. It takes its place here alongside musical descriptions of the Valley of Sarka the town Tabor, the hill Blanik, and other landmarks in the big romantic work performed with spirit and affection by Karel Ancerl and the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra.
TCHAIKOVSKY: SELECTIONS FROM SLEEPING BEAUTY AND SWAN LAKE (London). By now one might assume that everyone has the Sleeping Beauty of his dreams but Leopold Stokowski and the New Philharmonia must be reckoned with—for they paint a huge, lush canvas that is reproduced larger than life by Phase 4 stereo. Both Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake are played less for ballet than for Technicolored dreaming.
CINEMA
THE SHAMELESS OLD LADY. The heroine of this winsome French film is a cheeky septuagenarian who, wins a new lease on life when her husband dies. In the title role, French Stage Star Sylvie, 81, develops a yen for TV, movies, horse races and icecream sundaes, ends up spending 18 brief but glorious months in self-indulgence before death overtakes her.
CRAZY QUILT. Director John Korty fashions a modern fable about a marriage between a realist (Tom Rosqui) and a romantic (Ina Mela) who learn after ten years of mutual misunderstanding to accept their differences.
FANTASTIC VOYAGE. In this highly entertaining science-fiction adventure, five minuscule crewmates, traveling in a teenyweeny nuclear-powered submarine, chart a hazardous course through man's circulatory system. After several unexpected stopovers in the lung and inner ear, the crew reaches its goal: the human brain.
THE WRONG BOX. Hidden somewhere among the plot machinations of this Victorian spoof is a wrong box, upon which most of the action hinges. The box is a coffin—unoccupied—although Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, John Mills and Ralph Richardson are more than anxious to find a suitable corpse to fill it.
BOOKS
Best Reading
TREMOR OF INTENT, by Anthony Burgess. The unfailing Burgess wit, craftsmanship and intellectual curiosity combine to bring off a first-rate eschatological spy novel.