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A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE. Apart from Death of a Salesman, this is Arthur Miller's most compelling effort to dramatize the tragedy of a common man. Robert Duvall's gutsy portrayal of the doomed longshoreman-hero gives the play a tingling emotional impact.
WAR AND PEACE. Though it is never easy to shrink an oak back to an acorn, Phoenix Theater's production of the mammoth Tolstoy classic is surprisingly dramatic. In this play, and in an alternate offering, Man and Superman, individual performances are submerged in beautiful ensemble playing.
THE SLAVE and THE TOILET have been written with a tongue of obscene fire, and the people Negro Playwright LeRoi Jones obviously intends to sear are liberal white intellectual race-relation do-gooders.
RECORDS
Virtuosos
BENJAMIN BRITTEN: SYMPHONY FOR CELLO AND ORCHESTRA (London). On the heels of 1963's bestselling War Requiem comes another major new work by Britten, recorded by Cellist Mstislav Rostropovich and the English Chamber Orchestra under the composer's baton. A 35-minute symphony of gloomy grandeur, it opens with short, skittering, sometimes angry themes. They are like uneasy questions, finally answered in passages that are broadly melodic but nevertheless tentative and unsettling.
BEETHOVEN: SONATAS FOR PIANO AND CELLO (2 LPs; Philips). Beethoven gave both the pianist and cellist a good deal to say in his sonatas, which makes the pairing of these artists a special delight. Sviatoslav Richter, 50, and Mstislav Rostropovich, 37, have been playing chamber music together for years, and each knows when to follow the other's moods and when to talk back.
A FRENCH PROGRAM (RCA Victor). French piano music has a tendency to sound delicate and slightly frostbitten. Artur Rubinstein breathes warmth and life into it, without ever losing his exquisite urbanity. His tribute to France, his home for much of his life, includes two Intermezzi by his late friend Francis Poulenc and La Vallee des Cloches by Ravel.
RACHMANINOFF: SECOND PIANO CONCERTO (Columbia). In 1947 an 18-year-old student with a penchant for Rachmaninoff was chosen to play the Second Piano Concerto with the Philadelphia Orchestra. Gary Graffman has never stopped reworking the ultraromantic piece and by now, as shown by this rich and seasoned performance, his formidable steel fingers are entirely in the service of the Russian's melancholy rhapsodies. With the New York Philharmonic, under Bernstein.
CARL PHILIPP EMANUEL BACH: SIX SONATAS FOR FLUTE AND HARPSICHORD (Nonesuch). In bringing back the solo flute, the baroque revival has also headlined a brilliant French flutist, Jean-Pierre Rampal, who seems to have enough breath to tackle the entire 18th century output for his instrument. Turning from J. S. Bach and Mozart, Rampal has recently recorded music by Telemann, Pergolesi and others, as well as these melodic and graceful entertainments by Bach fils, accompanist for that royal flutist, Frederick the Great.
JOHN WILLIAMS (Columbia). "A prince of the guitar has arrived," announced Segovia of his 17-year-old Australian-born pupil in 1958. Williams is still playing royally—his own transcription of Bach's Fourth Lute Suite and some Spanish showpieces like Albeniz' Sevilla and Tarrega's Recuerdos de la Alhamhra.
CINEMA