Six unused shots from the Abbey Road cover session sold in London this morning for £180,000 ($280,000).
The original estimate was £50-70,000. Press release below.
London – The complete set of Abbey Road Session outtakes and the final cover shot for The Beatles Abbey Road album sold for £180,000 today in the sale of Photographs & Photobooks at Bloomsbury Auctions in London.
Several telephone bidders and one room bidder battled to take home the complete collection of photographs from The Beatles Abbey Road session. Now among music photography’s best known image, the set of seven photographs taken by Iain Macmillan (1938-2006), sold to a private overseas buyer on the phone for £180,000 including buyer’s premium with a round of applause from the room.
Sarah Wheeler, Head of Photography at Bloomsbury Auctions said; “This set of photographs has triggered a brilliant reaction from the market, it has been a pleasure to share them with the public at our salerooms, even for a short time, and a delight to see them attain such a worthy price today.”
The original idea was conceived by Paul McCartney, he sketched out an idea of the cover for Macmillan who recreated the sketch into print. Holding up the traffic, local police gave Macmillan ten minutes to photograph the Fab Four walking back and forth across the now famous zebra crossing on the morning of 8th August 1969. The fifth of his six shots, selected by Paul McCartney, would become the album cover for the Beatles’ last-recorded album and one of pop music’s most famous and recreated images.
Edward Dimsdale, Senior Lecturer, Photographic Theory at University of the Arts, London commented; “Encapsulating a significant cultural moment, it is an image that launched a notorious conspiracy theory, and that clearly still provides a touchstone for fans. The opportunity to see the image in close relation to the only other frames originally shot by the photographer is undoubtedly instructive. By judgment or serendipity (or more likely a bit of both), Macmillan was able to seize upon an instant that continues to have the power to resonate, forty-five years on.”
In March last year, Hyung-Min Suh made tabloid headlines when he was arrested for allegedly molesting a female pupil inside his Lincoln Center teaching room.
The local tabloids had a field day with the salacious details, some of them deposed in emails before the court. Hyung-Min Suh was 22 at the time of the alleged incidents. His pupil was 16.
The case, we learn, never went to trial.
The original six charges – including sexual harassment, harassment, etc. were dropped by the prosecution on October 6, 2014. In order to achieve swift closure, Hyung-Min Suh was advised by his attorney to plead guilty to non-criminal, non-sexual harassment (code 240.26). The court accepted his plea and granted a conditional discharge. This leaves Hyung-Min Suh with no criminal record.
What passed between the pianist and his pupil behind closed doors at the Lincoln Center must remain obscure, but they were fairly close in age and apparently in conflict over a number of issues. The only determinable outcome is that Hyung-Min Suh was not guilty of sexual misconduct.
It is important the matter should be reported since a tabloid newspaper has refused to take down its original article and the pianist’s prospects are being damaged by its allegations, which have been dismissed by the court.
Hyung-Min Suh (pictured right) makes his first appearance this week in Britain, at a piano competition in Manchester. The judges there should take care not to be prejudiced by what might come their way in an online search. Hyung-Min Suh is innocent, ok?
The Deutsche Oper am Rhein, an unequal alliance of the cities of Düsseldorf and Duisburg, is having to make cuts.
The brunt of the pain is being felt by Duisburg, which has lost 20 performances this season and has taken a 25 percent budget cut.
Some reports that have been sent our way suggest Duisburg may have to close after 2017.
What on earth is going down on the Rhine?
The international American tenor died on November 8 in South Bend, Indiana. His death has not been reported in any US media, national or local. He was 97.
Tobin sang opposite Tebaldi in Tosca and was billed twice to sing with Callas, but she kept getting herself fired. He sang small roles in Bayreuth in 1953-54 and was a member of the Hamburger Staatsoper cast 1956-64, also guesting in Cologne, Stuttgart, Berlin, Vienna and Florence. In 1965 he joined the Deutsche Oper am Rhein at Düsseldorf-Duisburg.
Some might say he lived too long to be remembered.
Where are the media commemorations for Alfred Schnittke, who was born on November 24, 1934 and died in Hamburg 16 years ago? Where are the new recordings?
The most inventive, disturbing and seditious Russian composer after Shostakovich, Schnittke has fallen into temporary desuetude. His time will come, again.
(c) Horst Tappe/Lebrecht Music&Arts
(c) Marion Kalter/Lebrecht Music&Arts
The international tenor Reinaldo Macias continues to take issue with certain French opera houses that aim to hire young talent on the cheap.
Reinaldo makes several powerful and irrefutable points in this short essay for Slipped Disc:
One of the comments on the FB page of “L’Opéra National de Bordeaux” alluded to a recital by a younger Jonas Kaufmann at that theater. Defending the policy of looking for young talent at cheap prices, the person goes on to say that the theater was deserted to the point that the administration had to urge everyone in the theater to sit at the lower lever in order to give the impression of an audience. The person continues to say that today the Bordeaux public would queue up all night in order to hear him sing, if only “au claire de la lune”.
If we assume the premise that the choice of young/cheap singers is a financial consideration, Bordeaux fails miserably to make its case with this example. A recital where the theater is deserted is not an artistic pursuit worth much in financial terms if the issue is saving money on singers’ fees. I cannot help but to think that the outcome could be far different if Bordeaux had the courage and vision to engage Jonas Kaufmann today. I can imagine the public lining up all night to hear him sing. That same public would be willing to pay higher ticket prices to hear him, they would fill the theater and if administration is judicious and disciplined enough, the theater might actually make a profit. With intelligent marketing they could even go further but let’s stop here.
Administrations have disseminated their gospel so well that even the public now believes that singer fees is the problem. What administrations fail to mention is that mismanagement, excessive executive pay, top heavy administrations, and overly expensive productions are the real culprits they don’t want you to focus on. Administrations are all too aware that singers are easy to pick on. Singers do not speak out because they are afraid of retaliation. However, most are saying privately exactly what few of us are saying publicly and this is just the tip of the iceberg.
The financial and personal investment it takes to become an opera singer is not worth the return. Many singers realize this and the young will soon realize the same. It is outrageous to see singers in the 21st century spend six to eight weeks doing a production only to return home with a deficit or a minuscule profit. Most will never see a return on their investment. If the situation continues we will deplete our conservatories and universities of viable talent to ensure the future of opera in its birth continent. We are already making opera singers a foreign import commodity. What respectable young person living in the West would deliberately chose a life of artistic poverty? Is it just to ask such a sacrifice of that young artist when opera directors are earning ever-increasing pay?
The problem in opera is not with singers’ pay. Most of what ails opera can be traced back to those at the top of the administrative food chain! Opera is about great singers and great singing first and foremost. All other experiments and efforts quickly begin to resemble “the emperor’s new clothes”. The more administrations continue to replace great singing with something else, the more audiences will continue to shrink. Masking failed concepts with marketing armies doesn’t seem to be doing the trick either. We need to invest in great singing rather than divest from it.
Domenico Lombardo, 47, is in a critical condition after being shot seven times in the head, neck, chest and abdomen. The suspect is the mother, aged 50, of a student, 26, with whom Lombardo was allegedly having a relationship.
A morbid variation on an operatic theme.
The last few minutes of an extraordinary organ recital given last March by Charlemagne Palestine at the Plymouth Church in Brooklyn Heights. Watch a hypnotic eyeful, catch an earful of this.
h/t: Allan Evans
This 1806 Broadwood piano in apparently good condition has been gutted of its music and turned into a writing desk.
The owner (perhaps the converter) wants $1,500 for it on ebay.
There must be a name for the ‘craftsman’ who lovingly did this.
Mexican police have claimed a breakthrough in the murder of Luis Fernando Luna Guarneros, who was found strangled to death in Yucatan, last week.
A music teacher from Merida, a man aged 30, has been arrested as the main suspect. He has been identified by his initials ‘as Rafael MCP’.
Three accomplices are being questioned on suspicion of helping him attempt to dispose of the body. The motive appears to be money. The victim was made to give up his bank cards and pressured to disclose his pin numbers. Local report here.
Richard D Syracuse, emeritus professor of music and artist in residence at Ohio University, was killed on Friday night by a Dodge Grand Caravan as he returned home from performing at Ohio University Inn. He taught at the college for 46 years and, after retirement, he entertained diners at the piano several nights a week.
We’ve been informed of the death in Manchester of Christopher Yates, aged 76.
Chris was for many years Vice Principal of Royal Northern College of Music. He was also chair of the Musicians Benevolent Fund and Live Music Now.
LMN has tweeted: ‘His impact on our organisation was enormous, and he will be greatly missed.’
Our sympathies to his family and wide circle of friends.
