# Pictures and Portraits of Famous Composers



## TrazomGangflow

Most of us probably have an image of what every composer looks like. For most composers its a portrait. For more modern composers it's probably a picture. What is your favorite image of a composer?


----------



## Huilunsoittaja

My Love:


----------



## Dodecaplex




----------



## Trout

I think this accurately portrays the following composers


----------



## TrazomGangflow

I know I sound like an idiot but how do you add pictures and youtube clips in your posts like that?


----------



## Huilunsoittaja

TrazomGangflow said:


> I know I sound like an idiot but how do you add pictures and youtube clips in your posts like that?


In the box which you type a post, you should see some icons above that look like an earth, film slide or picture. Those are for attaching pictures and videos from internet links.


----------



## Weston

I think this wax figure of some composer or other (at Madame Tussauds?) is [expletive] awesome!


----------



## rambo

Good one.keep it up.Thanks.


----------



## Sid James

I had this recording, and I liked this photo of Bernstein, he's in a more relaxed, Olympian mood, and I also like his jumper, the design on it is interesting -


----------



## violadude

I think this picture of George Crumb is funny. He looks like he composes country western music instead of crazy dark, insane graphic notation scores.


----------



## Sid James

^^I've seen Mr. Crumb in photos wearing a beret. I think generally he looks like a kind of relaxed guy, despite those qualities of his music you talk to there. I think Ligeti was similar, with his shock of white hair & a big grin, he has this air of whimsy about him, but some of his music does reflect that as well in some ways -


----------



## violadude

^^^^^^^^^^










This is my favorite picture of Ligeti. It looks like it was taken on the same day, or in the same picture session or whatever. But I think he just looks like such a prankster in this pic haha. I agree, much of his music does reflect that. He liked playing around with music.


----------



## Sid James

I think this famous drawing of Stravinsky by Pablo Picasso makes the composer look like the very debonair man about Paris that he was. I like the slightly dishevelled look of the clothes - eg. the crooked tie - as well as how he's looking into the distance as if fixated on a thought or something, people who knew him and met him said Stravinsky often did that kind of thing, he was sometimes like on his own planet in his mind...


----------



## Shostakovichiana

I just love this photography of Shostakovich and his cat! If I ever get a cat I will no doubt call it Dmitri.. 









This picture is also awesome!! Prokofiev and Oistrakh in serious and grave concentration..


----------



## mamascarlatti

I'm a little bit in love with Puccini in this picture, cigarette breath and all.


----------



## violadude

I'm assuming that since this is the community forum, composers of all genres of music are up for grabs.










Charles Mingus

(Garles? Really google auto-correct??)


----------



## regressivetransphobe




----------



## violadude

Question!

Do these necessarily have to be _famous_ composers for me to post a picture of them?


----------



## Tapkaara

Sid James said:


> I had this recording, and I liked this photo of Bernstein, he's in a more relaxed, Olympian mood, and I also like his jumper, the design on it is interesting -


This could qualify as one of the worst album covers ever. Certainly one of the worst sweaters...


----------



## Klavierspieler

violadude said:


> Question!
> 
> Do these necessarily have to be _famous_ composers for me to post a picture of them?


I'd say no...


----------



## Klavierspieler

Gotta love the abstracted look!


----------



## Dodecaplex

More Gould:


----------



## TrazomGangflow

Huilunsoittaja said:


> In the box which you type a post, you should see some icons above that look like an earth, film slide or picture. Those are for attaching pictures and videos from internet links.


Thanks again for helping the technological idiot.


----------



## TrazomGangflow

violadude said:


> Question!
> 
> Do these necessarily have to be _famous_ composers for me to post a picture of them?


No it can be any composer you choose.


----------



## peeyaj

*Young Franz*










He's quite nice looking on his teenage years.. But I love those glasses of him.


----------



## Sid James

Tapkaara said:


> This could qualify as one of the worst album covers ever. Certainly one of the worst sweaters...


I like it because, as I said it shows Maestro Bernstein more relaxed, and I like the sweater, it is an interesting modern design (I'd probably wear it myself, when appropriate). It was also his final recording done live in concert, it was a very interesting account of _The Great_, he really did it very very slow, gave it a majesterial quality...


----------



## Sid James

regressivetransphobe said:


>


An opportunist and a Nazi goon...I'm tiring of Strauss now. Eg. even my favourite piece of his,_ Metamorphosen _was like too little too late. Maybe he should have had those feelings 10 or more years before he wrote it and let it all hang out in that piece. For most part of his music, it's very distanced from him, very objective. No wonder he could do things like that what you show in the picture. Other composers of the time didn't, some paid the price with their lives, others got out of occupied Europe, others went into hiding or refused to take part in musical life for the remainder of the war. Some people I know are harsher on him than I, they say he was a Nazi sympathiser, but I don't think he was, he was just a garden variety opportunist, like the thousands or more of others, who let the things that happened happen...


----------



## Sid James

*John Cage* was an avid cook and gourmand. He was also a mycologist, expert on mushrooms. Here is a photo of him in his kitchen in the thick of some cooking, the pic is small but quite clear. He enjoyed beating the eggs and stirring the pot in the kitchen just as he loved stirring up our thinking about music, with both his actual music and his interesting writings & philosophies about it -


----------



## Klavierspieler

Sid James said:


> An opportunist and a Nazi goon...I'm tiring of Strauss now. Eg. even my favourite piece of his,_ Metamorphosen _was like too little too late. Maybe he should have had those feelings 10 or more years before he wrote it and let it all hang out in that piece. For most part of his music, it's very distanced from him, very objective. No wonder he could do things like that what you show in the picture. Other composers of the time didn't, some paid the price with their lives, others got out of occupied Europe, others went into hiding or refused to take part in musical life for the remainder of the war. Some people I know are harsher on him than I, they say he was a Nazi sympathiser, but I don't think he was, he was just a garden variety opportunist, like the thousands or more of others, who let the things that happened happen...


From what I've read, he was trying (and succeeded) to save his son's wife and kid(s), who were Jewish. Hitler was a fan of his music so he had that on his side.


----------



## Rasa

Bah, judging a composer over their personal life or political belief. For the true listener, what matters other than the music?


----------



## regressivetransphobe

I just think that Strauss photo is funny, personally.


----------



## tdc

Sid James said:


> An opportunist and a Nazi goon...I'm tiring of Strauss now. Eg. even my favourite piece of his,_ Metamorphosen _was like too little too late. Maybe he should have had those feelings 10 or more years before he wrote it and let it all hang out in that piece. For most part of his music, it's very distanced from him, very objective. No wonder he could do things like that what you show in the picture. Other composers of the time didn't, some paid the price with their lives, others got out of occupied Europe, others went into hiding or refused to take part in musical life for the remainder of the war. Some people I know are harsher on him than I, they say he was a Nazi sympathiser, but I don't think he was, he was just a garden variety opportunist, like the thousands or more of others, who let the things that happened happen...


Yes, but at the risk of opening a can of worms some conspiracy theorists might point out that there is a lot of evidence to support the fact that *one group of people* funded both sides during WWII. Perhaps this is the way many wars have been fought for centuries. The reasons behind these pre-plotted wars just spin and propaganda. The best Nazi scientists after the war all went to work in America.

Maybe such conspiracies are true, maybe not, but this 'us' = good guys, and 'them' = bad guys, doesn't fly in my book. I wonder if the Nazis had won WWII if people would be sitting here discussing the composers that may or may not have been 'American sympathizers'. Remember America dropped the biggest and most destructive bomb in WWII - killing countless in one of the most brutal inhumane and environmentally unfriendly ways possible. Two wrongs don't make a right. I am not trying to defend any of the horrendous acts that happened during that time on both sides, but to sit here making judgements and to pretend we really knew the ins and outs of these situations is just silly imo...


----------



## Klavierspieler

Sid James said:


> Maybe he should have had those feelings 10 or more years before he wrote it and let it all hang out in that piece.


What difference does it make as to when a piece was written?


----------



## Sid James

.........................................................


----------



## Sid James

*Edward Elgar*, a keen cyclist -


----------



## Sid James

*Schoenberg* playing ping-pong in L.A., which he apparently did with George Gershwin. I like to see the more human side of classical composers...


----------



## Sid James

Comedian-pianist* Victor Borge* on Sesame Street -










& here on this album cover with some of his favourite composers that he liked to have a bit of a dig at, in an affectionate sort of way, of course -


----------



## TrazomGangflow

Just a standard portrait, this is my favorite image of a composer.


----------



## Klavierspieler




----------



## Couchie

I used to have a book with a great portrait of Stravinsky which simply *IS* Stravinsky, but I don't have it any more and couldn't find it on Google image search.


----------



## aleazk

Maurice and Mouni...


----------

