Music: LPs: Nature and Art

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Walter Carlos: Sonic Seasonings (Columbia, 2 LPs, $6.98). When the Roman philosopher Seneca said, "All art is but imitation of nature," he didn't know the half of it. Today's electronic composer no longer bothers to imitate nature the way Vivaldi did in The Four Seasons. Tape recorder in hand, he simply camps at the seashore or in a rain forest, and lets Mother Nature herself compose an accelerando of breaking waves or a pizzicato polka of storm effects. Then he adds electronic sounds—whirrr, ping, eeeeeee, r-r-r-roar—and voila!, the new art of sonic environments, "music" to the ears of those who would rather "hear" sound than "listen" to it. Walter (Switched-On Bach) Carlos here presents four tone poems—spring, summer, fall, winter—that give a good approximation of what a year's hike might be like on the Appalachian Trail. Possible uses: mellifluous Muzak for a flower shop or Japanese tearoom, or dozy balm for the pastoral-minded insomniac trapped in the big city.

Mozart: The Wind Concertos (various soloists, the Berlin Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan conductor; Angel, 3 LPs, $17.98). An exquisitely executed anthology for the Mozartean who has everything—or thinks he does. The selections range from what might be called the camaraderie concertos, the Sinfonia Concertante, K. 297b (featuring oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn) and the Flute and Harp Concerto, K. 299, to the solo works for bassoon (K. 191), flute (K. 313), oboe (K. 314) and clarinet (K. 622). Von Karajan's soloists, drawn from the Berlin Philharmonic, are superb.

Mozart: The Four Horn Concertos (Barry Tuckwell soloist, Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Neville Marriner conductor; Angel, $5.98). As a solo instrument, the French horn lacks the innate variety of the piano or violin. That is a fact to be noted, then forgotten, while listening to this ravishing LP. Tuckwell plays the concertos as though they were as emphatically profound as anything Mozart ever wrote—which in the case of Nos. 3 (K. 447) and 4 (K. 495) is not too far from the truth.

Mozart: Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, Sinfonia Concertante for Violin and Viola, K. 364, Symphony No. 32 (Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Neville Marriner conductor; Argo, $5.95). Whether accompanying French-horn players (see above) or reinterpreting the Baroque repertory (the Bach orchestral Suites, the Handel Concerti Grossi, Op. 6), Neville Marriner is one of the best and busiest maestros on the London recording scene. His Mozart, an artful shading of sinew, sensuousness and sonority, is as good as anything he does. Indeed, Nachtmusik is the freshest, rosiest reading of that serenade to come along in years.