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Classic
classics
By Bob King
T EUNIVERSITY Musical Society's
1983/84 season was again a virtuoso
performance. With Hill Auditorium's
steady flow of stellar programs,. Ann
Arbor continues not only to meet the
standards of the major urban art cen-
ters, but to set its owneven higher.
This winter's symphonic crescendo
came from Leonard Bernstein and the
Vienna Philharmonic, playing to a
hyper-appreciative audience which
happened to be the largest on their
eight-city U.S. tour. Their Wednesday-
night performance of Brahms and

Mozart eclipsed the Thursday show
(even with Justus Franz in the Schumann
piano concerto), but to choose a
highlight from that evening would be a
crime.
The fourth movement of Mozart's
Jupiter, however, was the event of a
musical lifetime. Glimmering in the
rapture of the Vienna's string section
may be the closest experience to divine
commune this side of the West coast. It
didn't take a neo-romantic to enjoy the
maestro's frenzy on the podium.
A second highlight is rumored to have
been the English Chamber Orchestra,
but an existential cloud has obscured
direct review.
A performance rivalling Bernstein's
was put together recently by Vaclav,
Neumann and the Czech Philharmonic,
whose authoritative interpretation of
Ma Vlast came as close as super-
humanly possible to bringing
Smetana's Czech homeland to the U.S.
The musicians emotion was gripping;
the audience at the conclusion brought

Books
from Page 19
1.25 million copies in print!
Eighth place is awarded to Return of
the Jedi, the illustrated storybook of the
film, adapted by Joan D. Vinge. This
book is nothing to laugh at - with over 1
million copies in print, you can be sure
that its sales have made a nice con-
tribution to George Lucas' already
healthy bank account.
After long deliberation, I decided to
give ninth place to the collective 'Han-
dbooks" that were published this year.
Such entries to this category include:
The Yuppie Handbook, The JAP Han-
dbook, The M.D. Handbook, and The
Cat-Haters Handbook. These books are
a dime a dozen, but they do well well
(there's one born every minute). They
offer cute, "faddish" humor which is
intended to poke fun at certain trends in
our society, but which usually succeeds
in popularizing whatever it is even
more.
Last but not least, we arrive at entry
#10. Tenth place goes not to any pne
particular book, but to what I consider
to be the new, fourth valid form of
literature. Besides prose, poetry, and,
plays, we now have: The graphic novel.
In case you've never heard the term
"graphic novel" before, it's actually.
nothing more than a very long comic

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Bernstein: Classical coup d 'etat
Neumann back on stage seven times
(applauding individually each of the
conductor's divine virtues, perhaps).


YOURE A STEP
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Though there were no weak points in
the schedule this season, several per-
formances did come up a bit limp. The
French National Orchestra succeeded in
embarrassing itself with a noticeable
lack of virtuosity. Similar was the War-
saw Philharmonic; one anonymously
misanthropic informer hypothesized
that "No one in (their) string section
would make second, chair in a major
U.S. orchestra."
In the panorama, however, there is
no valid way any minor journalist can
criticize the '83/84 UMS Program. The
names of Neumann and Price and Ma
and Bernstein sing for themselves. Hill
has seen the cream of the world's
musical talent.
To have had these performers in Ann
Arbor is cause for celebration, major
celebration. With a half a dozen urban
audiences, Ann Arbor forms the core of
American music culture.
The UMS is more than just an in-
tegral part of the "Best of Ann Arbor,"
It is a part that makes A2 one of the
"Best of the U.S."
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book in a deluxe format (really nice
color separation, quality paper, the
works). It's uniqueness comes from the
use of both words and pictures to tell a
story.
The contents of the graphic novels
now being published range from stories
of standard comic-book heroes, to
adaptations of famous books and plays,
to totally original material. Recently,
with the rise of direct-sales outlets such
as the Eye of Agamotto here in Ann Ar-
bor (a direct-sales outlet refers to a
store that carries only comics and
comics-related items, and receives its
merchandise directly from comics
distributors), the format of the graphic
novel has gained wider acceptance and
appeal.
This last year saw the publishing of
more graphic novels than ever before.
Marvel Comics led the pack with such
novels as The Futurians, written and
drawn by Chris Claremont, one of Mar-
vel's top talents. Although The
Futurians is a "superhero-type" story,
more and more graphic novels such as
the adaptations of Macbeth and Romeo
and Juliet (available at Borders) are
now being published. If you've never
picked up a graphic novel before, I urge
you to do so. I've a feeling it will
become a more and more prominent
form of literature as time goes on.
Well, that about wraps things up for
the 1983-84 book season. As they say in
those two fine American towns: That's
all, folks!
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Tim
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18 Weekend/Friday, April 13, 1984

23 Weekend/