Arts and entertainment reports from The Times, national and international news services and the nation’s press.

ART

Confiscated Works to Be Sold: Christie’s will auction more than 1,000 artworks confiscated by the Nazis from Jewish homes to raise money for Holocaust victims, the auction house said Tuesday. The sale, scheduled for Oct. 29 and 30 in Vienna, is expected to garner more than $3.5 million for the Federation of Austrian Jewish Communities, which took ownership last year of confiscated works whose original owners could not be traced. The lots include Old Master paintings and 19th century drawings, as well as carpets, tapestries, arms and armor. Most of the works, which have been stored for more than 40 years in a 14th century monastery in Mauerbach, Austria, were confiscated by the Nazis between 1938 and 1945. In an unprecedented move, Christie’s will organize the sale without taking its usual cut of the profits.

MUSIC

Out of Obscurity: New recordings of little-known works by Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev will be released June 7 on Carlton Classics/IMP Masters. The release includes the first commercial recording of Tchaikovsky’s oratorio “Ode to Joy,” which the then-21-year-old prodigy wrote as his final student work at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. However, Tchaikovsky refused to publish the work during his lifetime (1840-1893), fearing comparisons to Beethoven, whose well-known “Ode to Joy” was included in his Ninth Symphony. Also on the CD is the first commercial recording of Prokofiev’s “Zdravitsa,” written in 1939 as a tribute to Joseph Stalin. Prokofiev reportedly hoped the composition would persuade Stalin to reduce political pressure on the composer’s Spanish-born wife, who was nonetheless later exiled to Siberia, where she died, for crimes never clearly defined. Selections on the CD, which also includes Tchaikovsky’s original “Romeo & Juliet” fantasy overture, are preformed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir, with Derek Gleeson conducting.

TV/VIDEO

On Tap: Spinal Tap, the fictitious British heavy metal rock group from the 1984 rock spoof movie “This Is Spinal Tap,” is back. Comedians Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer reprise their band member roles in new TV commercials for IBM, the first of which premiered Sunday. In the spot, the group hires IBM to help with their “third comeback tour” because of complicated logistics including “nutritionists, au pairs, personal trainers, not to mention the erupting volcano apparatus.” The inept band members in the ad have confidence in IBM because they’ve “been at it since the ‘60s and so have we.”

CPB Nominee Named: Broadcaster Heidi Schulman was nominated by President Clinton on Tuesday to the Corp. for Public Broadcasting’s board of directors. Schulman, a Los Angeles native and the wife of Commerce Secretary Mickey Kantor, won an Emmy for producing the 1994 documentary “A Century of Women.” She covered government and public policy in Los Angeles for NBC from 1978-1990 and was a programming consultant for the U.S. Information Agency’s Worldnet Television in 1993-1994.

Simpson Video Flops: O.J. Simpson’s mail-order video proclaiming his innocence in the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman has been a sales flop, according to the Los Angeles-based Infomercial Marketing Report, whose publisher, Steve Dworman, says that “O.J. Simpson: The Interview” has sold only “somewhere between 30,000 and 40,000” copies since its release three months ago. By comparison, many mail-order videos, such as the recent nature tape “Dangerous Encounters,” sell 30,000 to 40,000 in their first week on sale, Dworman said.

POP/ROCK

Free Black Crowes Concert: The Black Crowes will headline a free “Independence Daze” concert sponsored by radio station KLOS-FM (95.5) on July 6 at the Glen Helen Blockbuster Pavilion in Devore. Tickets for the 50,000-capacity show--which will also feature the bands 7 Mary 3, Son Volt and Three Pound Thrill, plus a fireworks display--can be obtained by sending a self-addressed, stamped envelope to KLOS, P.O. Box 95.5, Los Angeles, Calif. 90016.

QUICK TAKES

Sad news on Fox’s “Married . . . With Children” front. Buck, the French Briard who starred as the Bundy family dog, died of natural causes over the weekend. Buck had turned 13 in April, surpassing the average French Briard life span of 10 to 12 years. . . . Departing “Entertainment Tonight” anchor John Tesh will give his chair from the show’s set to Beverly Hills’ Planet Hollywood tonight during a farewell bash starting at 6 p.m. Tesh will host his final “ET”--his 2,314th show--on Thursday.. . . . “Parrotheads” worldwide will be able to take part in the backstage festivities--via the World Wide Web--when Jimmy Buffett and the Coral Reefer Band kick off their 1996 “Banana Wind” summer tour tonight in Toronto, Canada. The festivities begin at 9 p.m., with a one-hour, pre-concert interactive chat at https://www.compuserve.com.