Cinema: May 24, 1963

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Shostakovich: Symphony No. 4 (Philadelphia Orchestra; Columbia) was rehabilitated in 1961 after 25 years of official scorn in Russia; Shostakovich meekly labeled his next symphony "A Soviet Artist's Reply to Just Criticism." Now, in its first American recording, the Fourth is worth hearing mainly to find out what all the fuss was about. Whatever its polemic content may be, it sounds clumsily Mahlerian and full of papier-maché grandeur.

Mahler: Symphony No. 2 (Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and Hilde Rössl-Majdan; Philharmonia Orchestra; Angel) is the highest expression of Mahler's fascination with "the life force," and in this bountiful recording, it seems fit music for Resurrection Day itself. Schwarzkopf sings beautifully. Two LPs, sung in German.

Mussorgsky: Boris Godunov (Boris Christoff; Angel) features the best of the half a dozen great Borises in a superb recording. Christoff sings three roles in his amazingly rich basso, and the Sofia National Opera chorus is matchless in the music. Three LPs, sung in Russian.

Dello Joio: Fantasy and Variations (Lorin Hollander, pianist; Boston Symphony Orchestra; RCA Victor) is here given an appropriately spirited performance by the young pianist who played its world première last year. It is music for a virtuoso pianist and a game orchestra. So is the cheerful Ravel Concerto in G on the other side.

Beethoven: Sonatas for Violin and Piano (Jascha Heifetz; RCA Victor) is a five-LP package that includes all ten of Beethoven's sonatas, masterfully played by Violinist Heifetz and Pianists Emanuel Bay and Brooks Smith. What with a fat book of program notes, it is big enough to be a doorstop; what with Heifetz playing as he does, it is almost a way of life.

Barber: Knoxville, Summer of 1915 (Eleanor Steber; Columbia) is a rondo for voice and orchestra, with Soprano Steber singing James Agee's affecting text, which Barber has set to music. On the other side (and, unfortunately, better recorded) is Berlioz' Les Nuits d'Eté, also sung by Steber.

Songs at Sunset (Virgil Fox; Capitol) features a great virtuoso and a great instrument (the 10,000-pipe organ at Manhattan's Riverside Church) pitted against the banalities of such music as Ich Liebe Dich and The Lost Chord.

Handel: Four Favorite Organ Concertos (E. Power Biggs; Columbia) features another great virtuoso and a great instrument (designed by Handel, it is now in St. James's Church, Packington, England). The best of the four concertos is the grand and glorious No. 16 in F Major, which Biggs plays with immense symphonic richness and excitement.

BOOKS

Best Reading

Dare Call It Treason, by Richard M. Watt. The mutiny of almost 100 French divisions during the bloodiest fighting of World War I was long hushed up, but now it has been skillfully told by a salesman turned history buff.

Memories, Dreams, Reflections, by C. G. Jung. In this posthumous autobiography, the late great Swiss psychologist traces his life in dreams, offering some startling insights into a mind that at the end was in flight from its century, from science and particularly from Freud.