Sergei Eisenstein's massive Ivan the Terrible marked the final collaboration between the film director and his chief composer, Serge Prokofiev: only two parts of the film were completed before a heart attack felled Eisenstein and brought an end to the proposed trilogy in 1945. Though Prokofiev often turned his film scores into concert vehicles, the music for Ivan lay fallow until it was worked up as an oratorio in 1962 by the film's conductor, Abram Stasevich, Angel's new issue of this 25-movernent epic (SB-3851) features the superb Russian mezzo, Irina Arkhipova. Rich-voiced Boris Morgunov's narration sets forth the Tsar's pronouncements and provides the tapestry's historical continuity, and the whole production is given sympathetic treatment by Ricardo Muti, leading the Philharmonia Orchestra. A fascinating curio.

Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra have recorded the Vaughan Williams Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, which appears in an attractive coupling with Britten's Four Sea Interludes and Passacaglia from Peter Grimes (RCA ARL1—2744). Through his numerous accounts of the Fantasia, Sir Adrian Boult has come virtually to own this music, yet Ormandy and his players derive a reading equally as brilliant in its emotion and sense of orchestral coloration, if perhaps larger in scope than the composer intended. The Britten has received fine recent recordings by Bernstein (Columbia) and Previn (Angel), yet this new version has the edge, displaying an especially well-developed sense of tension and mystery. Excellent recorded sound throughout.

The long-awaited recording debut of Soviet-born pianist Mark Zeltser (Columbia MX-34564) is a thrilling display of virtuosity that lives up to the acclaim garnered in his American concert debut in 1977.The program, however, couldn't be less compelling. Prokofiev's Sonata No. 8 was the last of the War Sonatas, completed in 1944. It shares with the op. 17 Five Sarcasms, written during the previous World War, complex rhythms, thick musical textures, and a bleak outlook characterized by harsh dissonance that, in the latter piece, approaches atonality. A brief but bright note is the inclusion of Islamey, Balakirev's colorful compilation of formidable difficulties culminating in a fierce presto furioso.Zeltser is brilliant throughout, and one hopes that his next outing will cover more appealing territory.