Post by darkehmen on Jan 21, 2008 9:32:31 GMT 1
I thought it would be interesting to ask the members of this forum what their favourite Karajan album covers might be. For me, part of the excitement of discovering new Karajan issues in the record stores, back in the '80s, was seeing what fascinating graphic designs DG would come up with to illustrate Karajan's recordings.
I say DG specifically because, much as I am impressed with EMI in other ways, I always thought that their album covers were rather lacklustre compared with those of Deutsche Grammophon.
For the purposes of this thread, let's talk specifically about album covers that do not depict the conductor or the orchestra, since those would fall more into the category of "memorable Karajan images."
First of all, although Karajan was very much a formalist (now seen in some circles as a...venerable style), my impression of him was always more of a person on the cutting edge, someone who kept up with the latest technological advances -- and indeed, furthered those advances. And DG's covers played up this "contemporary" idea of Karajan's recordings.
The Brandenburg Concerti cover is intriguing, and looks very futuristic, until one reads the liner notes and discovers that it is a reworking of a Baroque sketch of the Koethen castle grounds. How appropriate for HvK -- a blending of past and present. And the Creation cover is highly dramatic; as if it were showing the hand of God holding the newly-minted, still-smouldering orb of the world in his hand.
I remember being intrigued by how often DG created cover pairings or sequences. Never was this more striking than in the covers of the great choral works:
Each is a variation of a crucifix design, again blending traditional with contemporary elements (the Verdi laser-light cross is unforgettable), and all three clearly indicating a continuity.
This sense of a repeated theme recurs in the covers of the Mozart choral works -- two dramatic photographs of a stone angel:
Another memorable pairing comprised two photographs of parts a violin, dramatically lit, to illustrate string works -- the serenades and the Metamorphosen:
Some of DG's "nature" photographs were also quite striking, including the sun rising over the Matterhorn (Could there be a more perfect Alpensinfonie cover?), the sunset for the Rite of Spring, and the rainbow in the clouds for the Mahler 9th:
Returning to the "space" theme, the Holst and the Zarathustra made a natural pairing. That particular Zarathustra could be my all-time favourite Karajan cover:
Bold geometric sculptures often appeared on Karajan covers. For this post, I very much wanted to pair the original Saint-Saens cover with DG's first issue of the Barton Concerto for Orchestra and the Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta (remember the latter? It featured a group of transparent plastic/glass cubes -- so appropriate to illustrate the modern nature of the works), but I couldn't locate a .jpg of the Bartok, and I sold my own CD when the O.I.B.P. version of the same recording was released a few years ago.
I loved the coloured-foil sleeves of the '80s Beethoven cycle, but I must admit that the covers of the '70s set, with the numbers of the symphonies standing like physical monuments, imposing and majestic, were even stronger, indicating the towering nature of these works, and these recordings:
And finally, by far my favourite of Karajan's opera boxes was his unforgettable Parsifal cover, with the stone altar-like structure in the foreground, the highly contrasting cup of blood on it, all encircled by shimmering columns, verily like a cathedral of light:
(Kudos to the peerless set designer/production team, Schenk and Schneider-Siemssen (sp?), for the last cover, since it simply illustrates their incredible design.)
Well, those are some of my own favourites. I'd love to know which HvK covers other forum members consider most memorable.
I say DG specifically because, much as I am impressed with EMI in other ways, I always thought that their album covers were rather lacklustre compared with those of Deutsche Grammophon.
For the purposes of this thread, let's talk specifically about album covers that do not depict the conductor or the orchestra, since those would fall more into the category of "memorable Karajan images."
First of all, although Karajan was very much a formalist (now seen in some circles as a...venerable style), my impression of him was always more of a person on the cutting edge, someone who kept up with the latest technological advances -- and indeed, furthered those advances. And DG's covers played up this "contemporary" idea of Karajan's recordings.
I remember being intrigued by how often DG created cover pairings or sequences. Never was this more striking than in the covers of the great choral works:
This sense of a repeated theme recurs in the covers of the Mozart choral works -- two dramatic photographs of a stone angel:
Another memorable pairing comprised two photographs of parts a violin, dramatically lit, to illustrate string works -- the serenades and the Metamorphosen:
Some of DG's "nature" photographs were also quite striking, including the sun rising over the Matterhorn (Could there be a more perfect Alpensinfonie cover?), the sunset for the Rite of Spring, and the rainbow in the clouds for the Mahler 9th:
Returning to the "space" theme, the Holst and the Zarathustra made a natural pairing. That particular Zarathustra could be my all-time favourite Karajan cover:
Bold geometric sculptures often appeared on Karajan covers. For this post, I very much wanted to pair the original Saint-Saens cover with DG's first issue of the Barton Concerto for Orchestra and the Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta (remember the latter? It featured a group of transparent plastic/glass cubes -- so appropriate to illustrate the modern nature of the works), but I couldn't locate a .jpg of the Bartok, and I sold my own CD when the O.I.B.P. version of the same recording was released a few years ago.
I loved the coloured-foil sleeves of the '80s Beethoven cycle, but I must admit that the covers of the '70s set, with the numbers of the symphonies standing like physical monuments, imposing and majestic, were even stronger, indicating the towering nature of these works, and these recordings:
And finally, by far my favourite of Karajan's opera boxes was his unforgettable Parsifal cover, with the stone altar-like structure in the foreground, the highly contrasting cup of blood on it, all encircled by shimmering columns, verily like a cathedral of light:
(Kudos to the peerless set designer/production team, Schenk and Schneider-Siemssen (sp?), for the last cover, since it simply illustrates their incredible design.)
Well, those are some of my own favourites. I'd love to know which HvK covers other forum members consider most memorable.
