Dr. Koussevitzky is beginning the Sanders Theatre series of the Boston Symphony tonight with a thoroughly orthodox program of works by Berlioz, Mozart, and Dvorak. Frankly, the program sounds like a Sunday evening Pops concert; certainly, it shows little of the customary interest for which Koussevitzky as a program builder, has become justly famous. Recalling with extreme satisfaction the magnificent reading of Beethoven's "Eroica" Symphony which began last season's concerts, the Symphony in E minor, "From the New World" by Dvorak, is something of a letdown. We cannot believe that Koussevitzky was governed in his choice by the holiday which precedes the concert. More probably, Koussevitzky feels that this symphony has unjustly suffered because it has been overplayed and not because it is inferior workmanship. One thing is sure, that a great conductor can make this symphony, a force of power and beauty; and it is in this type of essentially dramatic music that Koussevitzky's special forte lies.

Earlier in the program, the combined string sections and horns will join in a performance of a divertimento in B flat by Mozart, K. No. 287. The piece was composed and presented in 1777, during Mozart's twenty-first year while he was in Munich on the first stages of his ninth concert tour of Europe. Mozart played the first violin in the performance, and prepared for himself a very brilliant part.

The concert is opening with the "Roman Carnival" Overture which Berlioz originally intended as an introduction to the second act of his unsuccessful opera, "Benvenuto Cellini."