Red faces at The Strad as Lloyd Webber flips

Red faces at The Strad as Lloyd Webber flips

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norman lebrecht

May 09, 2021

See what’s wrong with the cover image of the new issue of the self-styled Bibleof string playing?

Is there no-one at the magazine who can tell right from left?

This is Julian in real-time:

Red faces all round at The Strad.

Comments

  • Brian says:

    Oof. Reversal aside, he also looks about 20 years younger in the Strad photo.

  • KANANPOIKA says:

    I recall the early James Levine recording of Verdi’s “Giovanna D’Arco,” where in the LP program booklet, a large photograph of the musical forces is reversed.

  • Greg Bottini says:

    Yeah, that’s pretty bad….
    I’m still not going to cancel my subscription, though.

  • Rachelle Goldberg says:

    As soon as I received my copy about two weeks ago I contacted The Strad. I was quite amazed that an International magazine such as The Strad could not have had this checked out. I did ask if Julian had suddenly become left handed!! Maybe there should have been a prize for the first reader to spot this!!!

  • henry williams says:

    they employ staff with no knowledge
    of music.
    nothing new

  • Gordon Davies says:

    Well, he is a bit of a Leftie.

  • CYM says:

    Would be easier to manage the instrument if Julian chose the
    double-bass …

  • I’m surprised to learn there is still a print edition for such an oversight to be immortalized on.

    I’m going to guess that the layout of the magazine has been outsourced to firm staffed from a re-education camp in another land.

  • Le KÅ™enek du jour says:

    The right-left reversal of Strad is Darts.
    Perhaps that’s what they ought to try their hand at.

  • Bill says:

    Plenty of string-players are told by their teachers to practice with a mirror. When they look, what do you think they see? Not like this is something no one has ever seen before, and it isn’t difficult to reverse the image again if you really want to see it without the reversal.

  • Darrell says:

    I am going to say that it is some intentional PR tactic to get more media exposure, something that they are achieving.

  • Ricardo says:

    April joke? Or a photograph taken of Julian’s mirror image. Or done on purpose to wake people up and/or elicit the kind of comments on display here. Memorable cover, in any case.

  • Ed says:

    Isaac Stern got the same treatment about 30 years ago, as you can see here:

    https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/174262550795?mkevt=1&mkcid=1&mkrid=710-53481-19255-0&campid=5338722076&toolid=10001

    Oops…
    Ed.

    • Tanya Tintner says:

      One of the big nightmares of graphic design, at least in those less computerised days, was that the printer would flip the trannie – ie, view the transparency from the wrong side and print it that way. Writing “view from this side” was essential. But the golden rule of printers was always: If something can go wrong, it will. If something can’t go wrong, it still will.

  • Shalom Rackovsky says:

    I don’t see what is so exciting about this. No doubt all of you remember the right-handed horns introduced by the Berlin Philharmonic horns a couple of years ago:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJ61bxBYIOA

  • Fliszt says:

    So the idiots who ran the record companies are now running The Strad!

  • PaulD says:

    After all these years, I’ve realized I’ve been looking at backwards pictures of Paul McCartney.

  • Geigerin says:

    Mirror, mirror on the wall, which bow arm is the best of all?

  • Christopher Clift says:

    Facebook is one of the worst culprits when it comes to printing musicians in reverse. Itzaak Perlman was published only about a month ago playing as if he were ‘corrie fisted’. And loads of amateurs upload their own pictures in reverse.

  • Ed says:

    It seems to be an infectious problem in the UK: BBC Music Magazine inverted an Isaac Stern photo on page 96 of its February 2021 issue.

    Now, I’m waiting for a picture of Sir Donald Runnicles holding a baton in his right hand!

  • batonbaton says:

    My first thought was, “Flippin’ heck… they got that wrong.”

  • Fiona Hook says:

    He apparently quotes the review I gave him in The Strad, and spits when my name is mentioned. My critique in the Evening Standard caused him to ring the paper and complain. Result! If you make a named Stradivarius sound as if it had just come off a Chinese production line, you deserve all you get.

  • FAHNtastic says:

    I can’t wait to see the cover of the next issue showing a picture of an oboist blowing at the wrong end.

  • FAHNtastic Violist says:

    I can’t wait to see the cover of the next issue with a picture of an oboist blowing at the other end.

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