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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...
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...
...after having earned a solid reputation as a recitalist in European cities, Ponti broke into recording in a characteristically lavish way. Vox Records wanted to record what seemed like the whole of the romantic piano literature and asked Ponti to be the performer. Since then he has made 25 LPs, including the complete piano music of Tchaikovsky, and is now working on Scriabin and Rachmaninoff. Largely as a result of this extensive background, he now has enough solo pieces in his head to turn out a six-hour nonstop recital. In addition, he can play any of 50 concertos...
...sings Soprano Regina Resnik on one of the year's more remarkable operatic LPs, Highlights from the Metropolitan Opera Gala Honoring Sir Rudolf Bing (DGG, $6.98). The "he" is, of course, Sir Rudolf, the Met's retiring general manager; the "we" refers to Miss Resnik, other Met stars and six conductors who performed their, his and perhaps everybody's favorite arias for 51 hours last April at Bing's formal farewell...
...least that is the impression one gets from listening to two new LPs drawn from tapes of the Carnegie concert and another Guthrie Memorial held at the Hollywood Bowl in 1970. Especially intriguing is the variety of musical treatment to which Woody's songs lend themselves. On the one hand there is Richie Havens turning the gruff, striding Vigilante Man into a mournful, gripping blues ballad. Or Odetta, virtually inventing a western soul style for the happy-go-lucky Ramblin' Round. When Guthrie talked about hard rock he meant a substance men mined in a hole...