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HAYDN: THE CREATION (2 LPs; Decca). One of the last great works of the skeptical 18th century was this triumphant affirmation of Haydn's faith. Translated from the German and sung clearly in English, the oratorio will seem especially vivid to U.S. listeners because the music so closely fits the words. One hears the tawny lion roar, the insects swarm and the tiger leap for the first time on earth. Frederic Waldman conducts the Musica Aeterna Orchestra and Chorus, and Soprano Judith Raskin, as Gabriel, sings brilliantly, at times eclipsing her more earthbound fellow archangels, Tenor John McCollum and Bass Chester Watson.
DELIUS: SONGS OF FAREWELL (Angel). "How sweet the silent backward tracings!" Walt Whitman's verses begin. Delius was blind when he wrote this tone poem for double chorus and orchestra, with its sliding harmonies complex in texture yet as delicate as sighs. Sir Malcolm Sargent conducts the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the Royal Choral Society.
CINEMA
KING AND COUNTRY. Director Joseph Losey (The Servant) unfolds the pity-and-terror-filled tale of a World War I deserter (Tom Courtenay) who is doomed to die, and of the British officer (Dirk Bogarde) who is doomed to defend him.
THE FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX. Survivors of a plane crash in the Sahara, among them James Stewart, Hardy Kruger and Richard Attenborough, struggle to construct an airworthy vehicle from the wreckage and work up plenty of excitement in the attempt.
OTHELLO. As Shakespeare's Moor of Venice, Laurence Olivier makes this filmed stage production a spectacular display of virtuosity, though he spends so much of his talent impersonating a Negro that the characterization often seems skin-deep.
DOCTOR ZHIVAGO. In Director David Lean's literate, magnificently visualized version of Boris Pasternak's novel, the romance of Zhivago (Omar Sharif) and his Lara (Julie Christie) dominates a vast canvas of war and social upheaval.
OHAYO. The easy rhythm of middle-class existence in suburban Tokyo is the plot and soul of a gentle family comedy by the late Yasujiro Ozu, Japan's most celebrated film poet.
THUNDERBALL. Sean Connery's alter ego, James Bond, is back with a treasury of wishfulfillment and a nickel's worth of plot, something about a couple of stolen atomic bombs.
THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD. Espionage made grim, grey and as engrossing as it was in John le Carré's novel, with Richard Burton perfectly cast as the worn-out British Intelligence hack on a fateful mission behind the Berlin Wall.
DARLING. This bittersweet satire sheds crocodile tears for a jet-set playmate (Julie Christie) who lives and learns that a girl who is no better than she should be can do very well indeed.
JULIET OF THE SPIRITS. Director Federico Fellini (8½) stages a psychic three-ring circus in the mind of a troubled matron, played by Giulietta Masina.
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