Apr 25 2012: The Modernist Christ (Geraint Evans Sings in Llandaff Cathedral, Delyse Records, 1962)
I suppose this record sleeve, containing a 1962 recording of Welsh opera singer Geraint Evans performing in the imposing setting of Llandaff Cathedral, might be seen to connect to yesterday’s post, in which the graphics of generic Soviet LP covers of a similar era were featured. While specifically designed for this one particular release, the sleeve follows a 1950s and 60s tendency for Classical music to be housed in very self-consciously Modernist covers, as though staking its claim on the progressive Postwar era, a culture democratised and available – through the technological mediation of the vinyl recording – to all, regardless of class and education. I don’t know the interior of Llandaff Cathedral, a place I’ve never visited, so I can only assume that the picture of it seen here accurately reflects the contrast of historic and modern elements in its architectural make-up: a contrast so striking that the Modernist construction surmounted by a curiously elongated Christ Ascendant appears, in this photograph, as a slightly unreal apparition within the nave of what otherwise appears to be an intact historic building.
