A WIND FROM THE WEST

Subtitled: Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic Abroad, this is a review of the five week tour they made in the summer of '68. Beyond the concerts themselves really nothing very much happened except in the sensitive id of Mrs. Ames (wife of Amyas, President of the Philharmonic) who has recorded at least one previous journey of her own in A Glimpse of Eden (1967). There are some pertinent glimpses of the Maestro--his anguish over the Czech invasion and the bloodletting at Chicago; his uncertainties at Vienna; an impromptu minuet performed in the Venice Woods; a walk on cobblestones just to hear the sound. But these are generally pastoralized visions of places and music, conducted at an interminable tempo by the author.