Twilight of the art director?


Dear Pliable, Lovely album cover. Above is another from Westminster that really takes the biscuit! An all-time favourite of mine. Never heard the recording.
Michael Richards, Sydney

Thanks Michael, knowing the wonderful piece you contributed about Stravinsky's Tibetan connection I thought it was an LP of music by George Crumb. Read here how Crumb was an influences on another vastly underrated contemporary composer.
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Classical music's next big thing is Karajan 2.0

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Anybody who has been around the classical music industry for some time will be struck by the remarkable similarity between the portrait of Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla on the cover of her first release for Deutsche Grammophon and Siegfried Lauterwasser 's brooding photo of Herbert von Karajan used on Deutsche Grammophon's 1979 vinyl release of the Beethoven Symphonies seen below. I tread on very dangerous ground here as expressing anything other than effusive praise for Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla simply prompts the usual social media tongue lashing . So let me make it clear right now that this release of symphonies  by the neglected Mieczysław Weinberg is very laudable . Moreover, let me also make it clear that there has never been a single artistic or personal criticism of Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla on this blog. But what I have expressed several times are reservations about the way that classical music's next big things are marketed . That Beethoven cycle by Karajan was released f...
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Travels beyond TripAdvisor

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The purpose of puffery and closed-mindedness

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I am not a Classic FM housewife

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Norman Lebrecht blusters as blogs bloom

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Master musician who experienced the pain of genius

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Pie in the face for a dangerous buffoon

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While classical music debates nothing changes

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Storm clouds gather over Aldeburgh

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