Label changes man for woman in response to Slippedisc outcry

Label changes man for woman in response to Slippedisc outcry

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norman lebrecht

August 13, 2018

Last summer, the Dutch label Pentatone issued a set of Mahler songs for mezzo and orchestra with a conductor’s face on the front.

Our readers did not think much of that.

So Pentatone have now reissued the recording with mezzo-soprano Alice Coote on the cover.

Which is no less than she deserves. It’s a fabulous recording.

Comments

  • Bruce says:

    The soloist should always be on the cover of a recording, whether alone or with the conductor. (Or no people and just an alpine meadow or something)

  • Caravaggio says:

    It is a wonderful recording indeed and about time the record label came to its senses about the cover art.

  • Gordon Davies says:

    And is it Frau or Herr Mahler?

  • Robert Roy says:

    I queried that at the time! Seemed most odd. Perhaps the original issue will become a collectors item!

    Either way, as Caravaggio says, it’s a wonderful recording.

    • anon says:

      Sell both versions, see which one sells more.

      Magazines regularly sell the same issues with multiple covers.

      It’s a great tool to see what works.

  • Monsoon says:

    Somewhat related:

    Last year I bought the “deluxe hard-back edition” of Price’s Decca “Tosca” that was released in honor of her 90th birthday.

    The liner notes are all about Karajan and John Culshaw.

  • Jon says:

    It can work both ways.

    When RCA released a recording of from the Proms of Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances, and Mussorgsky’s Songs and Dances of Death conducted by Yuri Temirkanov, with Dmitri Hvorostovsky singing the Mussorgsky songs, the CD cover art was a close up of Dmitri’s face.

    I was with him when Dmitri saw the cover for the first time. He was appalled that Temirkanov was barely acknowledged on the cover of a CD that was, for the most part, orchestral music.

  • Skelters says:

    Have haust had a similar issue with a CD just released. Asher Fisch conducted and I was adamant that Asher and myself received the same billing on the cover, but record company trumped me (contractually they had Artistic control over every aspect) and I lost the fight. When recording Wagner, with someone as auspicious as Asher (in that rep, particularly) I thought, and still think, that equal billing would have been the norm.

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