# Who would you listen to based only on their photo?



## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

*Who would you listen to based only on their portrait?*

Pretend you've never heard Classical music before and someone tells you they're distributing this 'new kind' of great music out to their friends. Something really new and awesome, and interesting. They're all equal choices right? You have no idea. But you have to quickly choose a photo or painting, and your choice will stay with you for the rest of the year. Out of all the portraits available, who would you choose? Post the best pic!


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Mussorgsky -- the deathbed portrait.


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

If you want to up this game even more, post the portrait with an associated work of Classical you imagine they would sound like.


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## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

Hmmm...maybe this


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

MarkW said:


> Mussorgsky -- the deathbed portrait.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)




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## MatthewWeflen (Jan 24, 2019)

I don't know that I totally understand the original post, but here is a picture that might make me listen to the music within.


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

> I don't know that I totally understand the original post


Me neither I read on this site that people are not buying recordings for the cover like this;



Ridiculous as the music is out of this world.


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## DaddyGeorge (Mar 16, 2020)

This portrait caught my attention, the pianist seems to be very humble.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

I'm not quite sure how this works - this person who frankly sounds like a very dodgy drug dealer has an infinite supply of composer portraits and they make me browse them all until I find one that intrigues me enough to sample the product?

Probably this one of Philip Glass so:


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

The design of certain covers may catch my eye, but I am fairly sure that I have never purchased a recording based purely or even primarily on the cover. Perhaps other people do.


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## 20centrfuge (Apr 13, 2007)

I think this would be very enticing.


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

You know, I really wonder if one can 'pick up' the vibes or essence of a composer just by looking at what they give off visually. Their mood and temperament.

Out of all the mainstream composers, I find these pictures the most visually enticing. He just looks like someone to me who knows how to write meaningful music (regardless of the actual music) https://www.google.com/search?q=cho...VfJzQIHSqWCBsQ_AUoAnoECBwQBA&biw=1366&bih=669

These ones especially:

















I find this to be an interesting and scientific exercise that could produce valid results.

As to what music I imagine him sounding like, hmm, I'm thinking *Brahms*, less so *Schubert*. I guess I missed that one. I have felt Chopin's inspiration greatly in Brahms's piano works, but it would have to be an exact match for me to count it.

So which composer most _sounds_ like how he/she looks?



Nereffid said:


> Probably this one of Philip Glass so:
> View attachment 137081


Hmm. I can barely read anything from it.



MarkW said:


> Mussorgsky -- the deathbed portrait.


Interesting, do you have it?


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

This painting of a young Berlioz - I had a feeling many years before hearing him that anyone looking like this composed big music that would let rip.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

Ethereality said:


> Hmm. I can barely read anything from it.


If I had never heard of classical music, I'd be very intrigued that it had something to do with David Bowie.


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## ribonucleic (Aug 20, 2014)

Thomas Hart Benton's portrait of Carl Ruggles was the perfect cover to Michael Tilson Thomas's 2-LP set of the complete works.


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## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

Vivaldi looks a bit like an angel in his portrait...


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

Beethoven. I think that the Stieler portrait captures very well the intensity and determination of the man and I find it very inspiring.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Allerius said:


> Beethoven. I think that the Stieler portrait captures very well the intensity and determination of the man and I find it very inspiring.


I also like this one. He looks young, charismatic, reserved (and somewhat "adorable" XD) in it:


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

The greatness I can hear. Visually I'm not picking up many vibes personally. Chopin I get visual vibes from, I think it's subjective.

A gallery of portraits so you can start this exercise on an even level:



I think I've seen people on the street that look like they'd be excellent composers. They're not.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

*The Passions of Bach*
https://interlude.hk/the-passions-of-bach/
June 4th, 2010
"Hoffman says it's important to remember that - unlike the classic portrait showing Bach as "bewigged, bejowled, stout and stolid" old man - the composer was once "a handsome, dashing guy." Much of Bach's best-loved music, including the Brandenburg Concertos and the pieces for solo violin and cello "were written when he was a young man in his 30s," Hoffman tells Edwards. Hoffman makes that point in the following essay, appropriately titled "Johann Sebastian Bach Was Handsome Once""















"...to most people it never occurs that Bach was a passionate man. And why not? Because of one portrait. The only authenticated portrait of Bach shows him as an old man - bewigged, bejowled, stout and stolid. This is the portrait everybody knows, the portrait of the serious, solemn, even severe "old master" who played the organ and taught counterpoint to generations of children at the St. Thomas Church in Leipzig. Looking at this portrait, it's not hard to imagine that Bach was great, but it is hard to imagine that he was ever young. Or slim. Or good-looking. But he was all those things. And more. He had 20 children, after all, and he didn't create them at the harpsichord. Many of the works we know and love, including most of his great instrumental works, Bach wrote in his twenties and thirties. We remember that he died at the age of 65, but somehow we forget that he wasn't born at 65. He always had quite a temper, was no stranger to scraps with his employers, and as a young man he once even managed to get himself into a sword fight. 
What led me to these considerations of Bach's passion wasanother portrait, much less well known and, alas, not authenticated. But it will do. Staring out from this portrait is a young Bach, a handsome Bach, a dashing, intense man. I felt, as soon as I saw this portrait, that it offered a key to understanding both the man and the music."


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## Guest (Jun 8, 2020)

Well, I'd run a mile from anyone wearing a hat. Like this guy

https://www.biography.com/.image/ar...NzE0NzIzODU0/richard-wagner-9521202-1-402.jpg


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

Allerius said:


> Beethoven. I think that the Stieler portrait captures very well the intensity and determination of the man and I find it very inspiring.
> 
> View attachment 137480


Ive always thought that Beethoven's head looks mahoosive and his hands look tiny in this portrait. Is that just me?


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## Malx (Jun 18, 2017)

Merl said:


> Ive always thought that Beethoven's head looks mahoosive and his hands look tiny in this portrait. Is that just me?


Just you .....


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## Fredrikalansson (Jan 29, 2019)

One of the things that annoys me with the big labels is their habit of just slapping on a photo of the performer(s). I know I once picked up a recording by Alfred Brendel in the store, looked at the cover, and asked myself "Do I already have this? It looks the same as every other Alfred Brendel recording I own." I put it back on the shelf until I could go home and make sure.

So unless the cover reflects the music, or at least evokes the era in which it was written, you could put any picture on and it probably wouldn't make a difference. How about this for_ Tosca_ or _Carmen_?








Nonsensical, I know, but it's eye-catching.

To be fair, a lot of the independents such as Hyperion, CPO, Chandos, even Naxos, go to some trouble to match an image to the music, rather than relying on the star power of their recording artists.


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