Cool looking classical records

January 25, 2012 in Photos | No comments

I loved my parent’s record collection.  The jackets were all so much nicer than mine, and the they were always way more organized than mine (they were all facing the same direction).  They were also nearly all classical records (the others were the sorts of things I now see a couple times a day in grocery bags, milk crates and wine boxes that people bring in the front door – Doctor Zhivago, My Name is Barbra, etc).

There’s so many cool looking classical records.  Sure, some of my all-time favorites are boring like this Budapest String Quartet recording of Beethoven’s Quartet no. 15 in A Minor (positively one of the best records in my collection).

It’s all there:  Daunting title and numbers, old guys in tuxedos, review from a magazine you’ve never seen in your life.  The only thing that’s missing is a frumpy bust of Beethoven – that would make it really boring.

Of course, by 1951 when they made this (their second) recording of Beethoven’s 15th, the Budapest String Quartet really didn’t have to catch your eye to sell records – They were rightfully regarded as tops by classical connoisseurs.

I don’t know if the boom in crazy cool classical covers really represents the desperation of mid-level performers, I think it’s more likely a response to expanding competition.  I do know that there were some amazing talents recording during the 1950s and 1960s, both on the records and in designing the jackets they came in.

My favorite classical covers are dark and sort of spooky, like this recording of Beethoven's "Appassionata" and "Pathetique" sonatas by Arthur Rubenstein.

Another well-known cover, a painting by Gray Foy that captured Dukas' suite "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" – made famous in the Disney movie "Fantasia".

Jackets for Mussorgsky's "Night on Bald Mountain" are reliable sweet (it is also often paired as here with "The Sorcerer's Apprentice". This RCA Red Seal is a digital recording. The jacket sets a larger image on the inner sleeve framed by a die cut jacket.

Recordings of the great modern American composer William Grant Still's works are rare, but not as rare as the winged rhinoceros on the cover of this album.

I suppose this album of harpsichord music by Bach and Haydn was packaged to entice listeners caught up in the Indian classical music fad of the late 60s. Harpsichordist Anthony Newman's own pieces at the end (Chimaeras I & II) are pretty freaky. The composer/performer himself promises in the liner notes they "should be experienced bty the listener on many psychic levels – from the literal to the subconscious." Heavy.

Saint-Saen's "Dance Macabre", the most famous of his tone poems, probably didn't appeal to the deadheads who accidentally bought this recording by Pierre Dervaux and the Orchestre de Paris. It is a geniunely macabre piece, intended to capture the song Death himself plays on the fiddle, accompanied by his footstomps on a tombstone.

Jackets for Gustav Holst's "The Planets" are usually pretty sweet. This one is also hilarious and a little raunchy (she's really sharing altogether too much, um, atmopshere down there). Sir Adrian Boult recorded one of the best "Planets" in 1954 (with the London Philharmonic). This 1961 re-recording is good but not astronomical by any means.

 

Naked chicks are always a good choice when designing record jackets. This version of Scraibin's "Poem of Ecstasy" also includes especially lurid liner notes.