THE MUSIC OF BINI SALFININISTAS, CAPITAL LP 63711 -- R, one of the rare recordings of this titanic, yet unsung, composer. Those persons who were lucky enough to see and hear the performance of his work at the Brest-Silevniov Festival in August, 1916, will certainly welcome his return to public notice; and it is not unlikely that, even as the great Bach lay dormant for so many years, so has the erudite, ingenious SalFininistas passed through his ``purgatory'' of neglect. But now, under the guidance of the contemporary composer Marc Schlek, Jr., a major revival is under way. As he leads the Neurenschatz Skolkau Orchestra, Schlek gives a tremendously inspired performance of both the Baslot and Rattzhenfuut concertos, including the controversial Tschilwyk cadenza, which was included at the conductor's insistence. A major portion of the credit should also go to flautist Haumd for his rendering of the almost impossible ``Indianapolis'' movement in the Baslot. Not only was Haumd's intonation and phrasing without flaw, but he seemed to take every tonal eccentricity in stride. For example, to move (as the score requires) from the lowest F major register up to a barely audible N minor in four seconds, not skipping, at the same time, even one of the 407 fingerings, seems a feat too absurd to consider, and it is to the flautist's credit that he remained silent throughout the passage. We would have preferred, however, to have had the rest of the orchestra refrain from laughing at this and other spots on the recording, since it mars an otherwise sober, if not lofty, performance. As Broadway itself becomes increasingly weighted down by trite, heavy-handed, commercially successful musicals and inspirational problem dramas, the American theatre is going through an inexorable renaissance in that nebulous area known as ``off-Broadway.'' For the last two years, this frontier of the arts has produced a number of so-called ``non dramas'' which have left indelible, bittersweet impressions on the psyche of this veteran theatregoer. The latest and, significantly, greatest fruit of this theatrical vine is The, an adaptation of Basho's classic frog haiku by Roger Entwhistle, a former University of Maryland chemistry instructor. Although the play does show a certain structural amateurishness (there are eleven acts varying in length from twenty-five seconds to an hour and a half), the statement it makes concerning the ceaseless yearning and searching of youth is profound and worthy of our attention. The action centers about a group of outspoken and offbeat students sitting around a table in a cafeteria and their collective and ultimately fruitless search for a cup of hot coffee. They are relentlessly rebuffed on all sides by a waitress, the police, and an intruding government tutor. The innocence that they tried to conceal at the beginning is clearly destroyed forever when one of them, asking for a piece of lemon-meringue pie, gets a plate of English muffins instead. Leaving the theatre after the performance, I had a flash of intuition that life, after all (as Rilke said), is just a search for the nonexistent cup of hot coffee, and that this unpretentious, moving, clever, bitter slice of life was the greatest thing to happen to the American theatre since Brooks Atkinson retired.