Bizarre Album Covers

[Serial_Apologist]

The subject of this thread has been revived onthe Carter thread, so I thought it might be worth looking at again.

We all have our un-favourite covers. I had to cover-up the Previn Rachmaninov 3rd symphony as I couldn't bear to look at it. And like others, I laughed aloud at that Leinsdorf Phase Four Mahler 1, a real 70s flower-power job.

Some covers would put me off buying the disc, even if I wanted it. John Eliot Gardiner's Bach cantata series featured asiatic fishermen, etc. Perhaps someone could explain to me what that had to do with Bach Cantatas.

Probably as much as Dvorak's New World Symphony has to do with Hovis bread - not to mention quite a few other homegrown products, I would think!

[RichardB]

John Eliot Gardiner's Bach cantata series featured asiatic fishermen, etc. Perhaps someone could explain to me what that had to do with Bach Cantatas.

Surely you know that all those covers feature photographs by Steve McCurry, of people from all over the world, which I imagine is intended to symbolise the universality of Bach's music, questionable though that may be as a concept. JEG's use of paintings by Howard Hodgkin for his Brahms series is also a bit incongruous, but at least McCurry's photos and Hodgkin's paintings are actually artworks in their own right, which can't be said for clarinettist Virgil Blackwell snapping Maestro Carter at his birthday party.

[smittims]

I regret to say, Richard, that I did not know that, nor indeed had I heard of Steve McCurry. Thank you.

[Bryn]

Surely you know that all those covers feature photographs by Steve McCurry, of people from all over the world, which I imagine is intended to symbolise the universality of Bach's music, questionable though that may be as a concept. JEG's use of paintings by Howard Hodgkin for his Brahms series is also a bit incongruous, but at least McCurry's photos and Hodgkin's paintings are actually artworks in their own right, which can't be said for clarinettist Virgil Blackwell snapping Maestro Carter at his birthday party.

I am reminded of some confusion here regarding the cover images of the early releases in the Brautigan/Willens Mozart Piano Concerto series, e,g.;

[Jazzrook]

I still have this Bukka White CBS REALM LP with the bizarre cover which I bought over 50 years ago. It contains some very haunting pre-war blues.

https://www.discogs.com/master/472799-Bukka-White-Bukka-White

JR

[gurnemanz]

Pentatone have opted for idiosyncratic likenesses of the protagonists in Lars Vogt's upcoming swansong disc with Ian Bostridge.