A Very Special Greatest Classical CD Covers EVER - Tuesday

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KLEIN/ROBBINS - SCHUMANN/DVORAK The tragic sequel to yesterday's kidnapping cover. Klein is now in full Stockholm Syndrome mode and onboard with Robbins. Will Klein pull a Patty Hearst? Only time will tell. Hopefully, striking bizarre poses on album covers is the worst these two get up to. Seriously, I don't think there's anyone - man, woman or beast - that I'd feel comfortable enough with to pose for a picture like this.

HANSEL & GRETEL (OPERA FOR KIDS) If your kids are sleeping a little too well these days, show them this cover. Apparently Hansel & Gretel is some kind of demented Woody Allen comedy where middle-aged couples dress up as kids. Makes sense. When I want needling of liberal Manhattanites' neuroses, I turn to Humperdinck. "There's so much ignorance and injustice in the world. It's all chaos out there and any fleeting happiness we find is either an illusion or a total accident. In the end we're all worm food anyway. And this candy cane is supposed to make me forget all that?" If my kids talked that way, I'd abandon them in the forest, too. This recording features Marshall McLuhan as the Witch.

A Very Special Greatest Classical CD Covers EVER - Monday

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With the holiday season fast approaching, here is a week of twofers to sharpen the mind and gladden the heart. When I think of the holidays, I think of peace on earth, goodwill to men, and making fun of something someone else worked very hard on.

KLEIN & ROBBINS - REUNION IN MOSCOW Clearly one guy is happier to be reunited than the other. The guy on the left is blinking out an SOS, I think. This photo was not taken in Moscow, but is rather a composite featuring an JPG background found with Google and a photo taken in the kidnapper's basement. Authorities will scuttle off to Moscow based on the photo, but the guy is being held in this very town! Diabolical.

BACH FOR BABIES So if you play Bach for your baby, they will (a) collapse into unconsciousness, (b) improvise a tap dancing routine that puts to shame every damn thing in "That's Entertainment!" or (C) be mutated into an emotionless spazz who runs around in a makeshift diaper. Take your pick, folks - my kids are sticking with Beethoven.

Greatest Classical CD Covers EVER, Part 14

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STRAVINSKY IN AMERICA (TILSON THOMAS) The worst buddy comedy of the '80s. TT was game, but Stravinsky seemed determined to sink the venture from the start. He insisted in speaking Russian throughout the film ("No goddamned subtitles!" was the only thing he said in English on set). He also demanded frequent and nonsensical script changes (his character, a crotchety janitor helping TT's CIA agent break up a narcotics ring, turned into an emperor midway through the film with no explanation). And the use of some of Stravinsky's later, serial works as theme music hardly had the impact of say, the Ghostbusters theme. Avoid if you see it at Blockbuster.

RICHARD STRAUSS - ARABELLA Hey! There's a party in the giant blow-up sex doll's hair and everyone's invited!

RIGOLETTO (SERAFIN) "Yup. I've been a widower for 50 years... Yeah, two. Daughter. Married. Moved down to Phoenix. And a son that teaches in Peru or Paraguay or some damn place... Once in a while. Phone call at Christmas, usually... Oh, most days I'm here, drinking my bellywarmers I call 'em, heh heh heh... Bored? Oh, no no no. Between the game on TV here and going to the races, I'd say my plate is plenty full."

VILLA LOBOS: ALMA BRASILEIRA (TILSON THOMAS) After the Tilson Thomas movie went nowhere, TT got a detective show. A kind of Baretta Meets Miami Vice. The gimmick was that the parrot would talk and give TT clues, but bafflingly, only TT could hear him speak which lead to many scenes of him conversing with the bird while others in the scene demanded "who are you talking to?" even though he was looking right at the bird. The parrot left after the third season due to a contract dispute. TT himself left early in the fourth and the show bizarrely carried on for 3 more episodes with neither of its stars. Critically acclaimed as a dadaist treatment of 80s decadence, it's worth checking out on DVD.

SEJONG PLAYS EWAZEN Confusing. The words of the title could be in any random order and it would make equal sense to me. Not sure how well these guys play but their hotel room trashing exploits are legendary. They're banned worldwide from staying in a Holiday Inn after the guy on the left drove a Caddy into a swimming pool at one of their hotels in Kalamazoo. At one show, these guys were so worked up they just jumped up and down and cheered for 90 minutes and left the stage without playing a note.

TRIO CÉRÈS - FAURÉ/RAVEL/HERSANT PIANO TRIOS Another rule of great cover design is if you're going to put a picture of yourself on the cover, make sure you project total contempt for all potential buyers. Two of 'em can hardly stand to look at ya and are all "if we just stay still and be quiet, maybe he'll go away" and the middle guy is totally "what do YOU want"? Look man, I'll just put the CD down. I've got enough static in my life and don't need any hassle from my CDs.

THE ONLY OPERA CD YOU'LL EVER NEED! Is it too much to say that anyone who has this in their collection should be forcibly institutionalized indefinitely?

Greatest Classical CD Covers EVER, Part 13

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THE BEST OF JOSHUA BELL This shot was taken from Bell's Gilmore Girls appearance. He was the sexually non-threatening fiddle playing boy who stole a kiss from Rory under the mulberry tree. Then a bunch of girls in the town went missing and the town blamed him. He was tarred and feathered and thrown in the river where he drowned. Then it turns out the girls were just on a school trip to a museum in Hartford.

DIANA DAMRAU - COLORATURAS Diana is at the stage in her career where she needs dolled-up, Renée Fleming type CD covers. Not ones where she's dressed up like Rhoda's spazzy sister doing a grim parody of the freeze frame at the of the Mary Tyler Moore Show intro credits.

HAUSMUSIK This looks like a screen capture from a bad real estate website. The web designer was obviously just throwing together random clip art. "Sylvia and David have been in the Rochester real estate market for a combined 27 years. Let their experience and expertise take all the stress out of your home buying experience. With their help, you can turn your new house into a HOME."

GUASTAVINO / CASTELNUOVO-TEDESCO Bismillah! No, we will not let you go! Let me go! Bismillah! We will not let you go! Let me go! No no no no no no no! Oh mamma mia, mamma mia! Mamma mia, let me go! Beelzebub has a devil put aside for me, for me, for MEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

MADARASZ - THE LAST WALTZ Wow. This one takes me back! Mommy slipping me spiked tea while she dances with some blurry weirdo who isn't daddy. And my closet was a wonderful portal to some exotic magical land. Well, it was until we discovered the auto repair shop below us was leaking carbon monoxide into my room.

WITCHES' BREW A generation of children were turned off classical music forever by this cover. An easily-entertained woman in baggy clothes cleans used instruments in boiling water, presumably with an eye to reselling them. This one follows one of the iron clad rules of great album cover design: a cover must give absolutely no indication of the album's contents. This could be a spooky sound effects record for all we know.

TITO GOBBI - THE GLASS MOUNTAIN Nothing like a beloved singer made up to look like a hobo playing a broken down accordian. This is as distressing as seeing Placido Domingo in a Bum Fights video. Maybe Tito was doing a Lucille Ball Stone Pillow kinda deal with this. Or maybe it's from a Gunsmoke guest appearance with Walter Brennan. Just when you think you have the answer, this cover changes the question.

Greatest Classical CD Covers EVER, Part 12

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PROKOFIEV - PETER AND THE WOLF Lenny Henry?! Was Mrs. Slocombe busy? Not everyone who's famous in a country somewhere needs to have their own Peter And The Wolf. I eagerly await the new version in Klingon narrated by Brent Spiner.

MATT HAIMOVITZ - BACH CELLO SUITES Okay, bringing the cello to the bush party sounded like a good idea. But man, if you're gonna wade through waist-deep winter run-off, man, BRING A CASE. Besides, once the goons start chugging beers, the girls aren't gonna care about your overgrown fiddle.

BRYN TERFEL - BAD BOYS Looks like Bryn spent a little too long with the cheese platter and is suffering the consequences. The follow up album will feature him holding up a glass of prune juice with a profoundly relieved look on his face.

VOICES FROM HEAVEN Apparently Deutsche Grammophon's definition of paradise is a little different than mine.

THE ELGAR EXPERIENCE What nationality was Elgar again? I forget. England's greatest composer? A dubious claim, but I'm not gonna argue with the giant woman about to smash that village to rubble. Between Elgar's ghost featured on previous covers and this giant madwoman, England has become a paranormal warzone.

STRAUSS - DER ROSENKAVALIER (KLEIBER) If someone showed me this as a kind of Rorschach test I'd blurt out "My grade one teacher holding a Mini-Me version of Leopold Mozart! Naked! Naked nude! Peacock feathers! Bad boy! Nude naked!" Then I'd have to be sedated.

LETTER TO THE LATE SERGEI (SAKIMOTO/MINO) When I feel the need to express bittersweet remembrances of someone who's passed, the first thing I reach for is my harmonica. The harmonica works if Roy Rogers needs to express worry that he may not get the cattle back from those pesky rustlers or if Gabby Hayes fell in the outhouse again. Anything more than that and you need to break out the serious weapons in the mourning arsenal: a banjo or a slide whistle.

Thanks to Doug Halfen for the cover suggestion.

Greatest Classical CD Covers EVER, Part 11

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AMIEI CHAMBER PLAYERS - ZOO OF DREAMS The classical music industry's is getting bored with ghosts and has moved on to Greek gods. I get mocked enough in my regular life and don't need the decadent denizens of Olympus laughing down at me. "Zoo Of Dreams", huh? What's that quote? "Flies around God's head are like wayward boys." Something like that.

DANIEL HOPE - AIR. A BAROQUE JOURNEY Yeesh. This smug pomo stuff is played out, dude. Yes, yes, we get that you've cleverly deconstructed the idea of an appropriate album cover photo. Pretty 1993, if you ask me. A better idea would have been to have a guy in the sky standing on a cloud and singing. And then maybe he could have this cool electric guitar. Yeah, and it could be powered by a lightning bolt that's hitting it. And he could have a sword. And he's just thrown the sword and it gets this three-headed dragon right in the chest. Then put "DANIEL HOPE - AIR" at the top, dripping in blood and you're done.

GEORGE FLYNN - TRINITY Talk about promising a lot! That piano's gonna have to make quite a lot of racket to be able to live up to the cover. Maybe they'll throw the piano down a flight of stairs. Or off the Empire State Building. Or shoot it into orbit and have it explode 100 miles above the surface somewhere over Siberia. The blast could then be heard all the way to Moscow. If I put this on and hear anything less than that, I'll be disappointed.

CARMEN (OPERA FOR CHILDREN) Gah! Looks like Wednesday Addams didn't turn out so good. I'm not sure that portraying Carmen as a pasty, skeletal crypt keeper will turn any kids on to opera. Maybe those years in the cigarette factory turned her against cigarettes and she decided to do an anti-smoking ad before she died. "Whatever you do, don't smoke. Just don't smoke."

PETER AND THE WOLF (WEIRD AL YANKOVIC AND WENDY CARLOS) I'm going to suggest that this isn't what Prokofiev had in mind. Weird Al has a glowing Frisbee and a lasso and he's being chased around Central Park by a wolf wearing Bruce Jenner's shorts who has roid rage. And Tweety Bird's great grandson twitters the whole scene using his iMac. Probably better to burn the score than subject it to this besmirchment.

VERDI - RIGOLETTO Rigoletto rolls his own while an evil ventriloquist's dummy tells him what to do. There's no more chilling moment in opera than when Rigoletto thinks the Duke's dead and then he hears the dummy whisting "La donna è mobile" FROM INSIDE HIS TRUNK.

MENDELSSOHN SONGS You can tell he's way more into her that she is into him. He's thinking about what color candles to put around the tub for the bath they'll take after their homemade pasta and wine meal he's been planning all week while she's plotting an exit strategy that may or may not involve cleaning out his bank account.

BONUS! MEGAPUSS!

The Ruler of the Interwebs

Know what happens if you enter "classical cd covers" into Google? You get this site as the #2 result. And into Bing? NUMBER ONE! USA! USA! So many of my visitors come here looking for covers and leave very frustrated.

Greatest Classical CD Covers EVER, Part 10

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DES KNABEN WUNDERHORN - DAMRAU/PALEY I hate these couples who dress up alike. You always see them truckin' down the mall wearing their matching windbreakers. Dressing alike is crazy - I fathered septuplets and you don't see me dressing them all up the same! These two will realize it isn't such a good idea anymore when they're riding home on the subway and everyone's snickering at them.

GARRETT/PLETNEV - VIOLIN CONCERTOS Edward from Twilight is menaced by a robotic, self-aware cello while he tries to practice.

PETER EN DE WOLF The classical music industry's undeclared war on children's psychological health continues. The drug-addled wolf with human eyes looks like he's about to start speaking and the kid looks like his mouth's about to open and keep opening until he swollows his own head. The bird is a messenger from Satan and the duck is an appalled, powerless onlooker. As are we all.

VERDI - SIMON BOCCANEGRA (ABBADO) Another great choice for the Opera for Children. So it turns out the Doge is actually Santa Claus. Now the council scene makes a lot more sense. I was always confused why everyone was arguing about how to get all the toys done before December 25. I don't remember the opera ending with Boccanegra's head and shoulders being cut off and nailed to a door, though...

TIMOTHY BUZBEE - RAW EMOTIONS Wine, a hot spring and one other guy was not what you were expecting when you signed up for the local polar bear club.

META 4 - HAYDN STRING QUARTETS A good rule of thumb is never buy a disc of string quartet music which features a picture of the group on the cover. You guys wanna turn the scowling down a notch and ditch the crazy sneakers? We get it: you're bohemian. These guys are giving me the stink eye as though I just wandered into the coffee house they were playing in and ordered a Big Mac.

FLUTE AND HARPSICHORD SONATAS Wow. Randy Bassoon Man looks like he can't wait for the recital to be over. Annie Hall Diane Keaton on cello is not looking forward to it. Maybe he'll get drunk and pass out in the cab and she can slip away and walk home. Interesting choice to feature a bassoon and cello on an album of flute and harpsichord music. This kind of switcheroo isn't unprecedented, though:

Thanks to Dominy Clements and Kyra Davies for the cover suggestions.

Hammertime

There are multiple YouTube videos of percussionists executing one of the hammer blows during the finale to Mahler's Sixth. This one sounds perfect to me.

Up For The Download

Mahler 6 Mania continues. I've been listening to it repeatedly for the last week or so. I've finally gotten into buying music downloads as opposed to buying the music on CD and have been using iTunes exclusively. I got the Tilson Thomas and Fischer 6ths first, then a few days later got the Kubelik live performance and Zinman's (for $3.99!). I wanted to get some of the commonly-recommended versions and decided to give Pierre Boulez's version a try. Not finding it on iTunes, I went to the Universal Classics page and went to Deutsche Grammophon's webshop. I found the album there and made the purchase.

I then learned that I shouldn't complain too loudly about the iTunes store. Whatever problems it has, when you buy something, it downloads FAST. Trying to download the Boulez album from DG was a trial. I literally had to start and re-start the download 8 or 9 times (on two different machines) before I finally got the files. What takes a few minutes in iTunes took around an hour from the webshop.

I'm looking forward to being able to make purchases from passionato.com (it's currently UK-only) as they offer albums from the big 3 (Decca, DG, Philips) as well as other labels. So the download situation for classical is slowly getting better. Which is dangerous for my collectoritis. Before this Mahler binge, I don't think I ever bought multiple versions of the same work on the same day.

(The complete Dorati Haydn symphony cycle is on iTunes for $50 which makes it the steal of all centuries. Go there now.)