# What's Your Favorite Cover to a Mahler Symphony?



## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

Mine is below, it was painted by Maurice Sendak and used on the cover of James Levine's recording of Mahler's 3rd:


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

The world of "classical music" seems to be "blessed" with the worst... or rather the most bland and unimaginative illustrators and graphic designers. Looking through some 40 pages of Mahler recordings on Amazon I didn't find a single cover that really grabbed my attention. There are lots of covers employing details from paintings by Gustav Klimt, but most of these are rather sad.

Perhaps this is the best of these:










I rather like this cover employing a painting by Egon Schiele:










... but again neither are anything to write home about.

Boulez' covers make perfect sense to me...










... as they make it clear that his Mahler is not of turn or the century Vienna, but rather of French Modernism.

I think the best cover I came upon was this which employed a work of graphic art by the Viennese artist of Mahler's time, Oscar Kokoschka:


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## dsphipps100 (Jan 10, 2016)

Well, it's not a Mahler "recording", but how about this still of Robert Powell as Mahler from Ken Russell's "Mahler" (1974)?







(since Klassic already beat me out on the Sendac Mahler 3 cover....)


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

StlukesguildOhio said:


> Boulez' covers make perfect sense to me...
> 
> 
> 
> ...


But this painting is of turn of the century Germany, based on a German landscape. What about it indicates otherwise to you?


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

I hope this thread can change MO, but IMO Mahler gets bad covers. That DG Boulez cover might be the best I've seen. I am a fan of the Decca Legends covers, but that's not the kind of thing we're looking for here.


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## DiesIraeCX (Jul 21, 2014)

Pretty much all the Boulez/Mahler covers (not 7)


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

The Boulez Das Lied has always appealed to me. The cover I mean, not the performance necessarily. It's not the version I have.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Weston said:


> The Boulez Das Lied has always appealed to me. The cover I mean, not the performance necessarily. It's not the version I have.


Too bad about the singers, who aren't up to the level of the best exponents of the work.

The Bernstein DG Mahler series had some interesting covers as well:


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## Jeffrey Smith (Jan 2, 2016)

The covers for Zinman's recordings are usually interesting, taken from art contemporary with the particular symphony and usually with a thematic tie to the symphony.


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## bz3 (Oct 15, 2015)

I like Levine's Mahler 3 cover:









Not the most serious of covers but I like it nevertheless.

EDIT: Woops OP noted that one already. I"ll just say good taste and add that I also like Abbado's 4th with the VPO cover!


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

I always valued the earlier Angel jacket covers where they used reproductions of high quality art work. I know that my knowledge of JMW Turner came partly through them! As to Mahler covers, how about the Klemperer 2nd...

View attachment 82036


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## Jeffrey Smith (Jan 2, 2016)

Becca said:


> I always valued the earlier Angel jacket covers where they used reproductions of high quality art work. I know that my knowledge of JMW Turner came partly through them! As to Mahler covers, how about the Klemperer 2nd...
> 
> View attachment 82036


Points to avatar
<<<


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

But this painting is of turn of the century Germany, based on a German landscape. What about it indicates otherwise to you?

Franz Marc was German but stylistically he was far more indebted to international Modernism, especially the works of the Cubists, Robert Delaunay, the Italian Futurists such as Umberto Boccioni, and the Russian Wassily Kandinsky. I know we've never agreed with regard to Boulez' interpretations of Mahler who I always envision as closer in sensibility to the art of late 19th/early 20th century Vienna: Klimt, Schiele, Kokoschka, Otto Wagner, Julius Klinger, Max Klinger, etc...


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

This is how it should be, the composer.:tiphat:


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

StlukesguildOhio said:


> Franz Marc was German but stylistically he was far more indebted to international Modernism, especially the works of the Cubists, Robert Delaunay, the Italian Futurists such as Umberto Boccioni, and the Russian Wassily Kandinsky. I know we've never agreed with regard to Boulez' interpretations of Mahler who I always envision as closer in sensibility to the art of late 19th/early 20th century Vienna: Klimt, Schiele, Kokoschka, Otto Wagner, Julius Klinger, Max Klinger, etc...


Mahler, like the artists of the Blaue Reiter, was a man with an international career who was born in a German-speaking region of what is now the Czech Republic, worked in Budapest and New York, and conducted all over the European continent. His influences were primarily Germanic, it is true, but he also absorbed many things from Berlioz, Tchaikovsky, and others. To paint him as entirely Viennese is to ignore the variety in his music.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

The first CD edition of the Kubelik cycle had this nice slip-case (and the artwork was repeated on front of the sleevenotes). The later 'clamshell' edition may have been more practical than the clunky multi jewel case edition but the 'Klimt' original wins hands down for being pleasant on the eye. More Klimt artwork featured on Kubelik's separate recordings of the symphonies.


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## MagneticGhost (Apr 7, 2013)

This one I always thought was really powerful. Can't remember the artist now though. Anyone?


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## Reichstag aus LICHT (Oct 25, 2010)

Klassic said:


> Mine is below, it was painted by Maurice Sendak and used on the cover of James Levine's recording of Mahler's 3rd:
> 
> View attachment 82031


Good choice! Levine's RCA recordings of the 7th and 10th have got interesting cover-art as well. Like others, I'm quite taken by the covers of the Boulez cycle, and I remain a fan of the Karajan "rainbow" covers... I collected them first on vinyl, and the large format LP sleeves (especially the double LP boxes) really showed off the designs.


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## Cosmos (Jun 28, 2013)

I don't have this recording. Not only does this cover look aesthetically pleasing, but the image feels appropriate. Calling to mind a sense of articulated structure. Not that Mahler's other symphonies aren't as well structured, but this is the first of his "absolute" symphonies, chronologically










Now, the Philips - Haitink cycles may seem boring because they use toned down transcendentalist looking nature paintings with dry color palettes, but I find it fitting for this recording of the 9th and Kindertotenlieder [which I own]. Maybe it's because of the bleakness of the song cycle, paired with an acceptance and reflection of life?


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

MagneticGhost said:


> This one I always thought was really powerful. Can't remember the artist now though. Anyone?


It´s *Jean Delville *L´Homme Dieu (1900)


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## MagneticGhost (Apr 7, 2013)

joen_cph said:


> It´s *Jean Delville *L´Homme Dieu (1900)


Many Thanks :tiphat:


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