Arm Chair Travel

Symphony No. 2, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Columbia Masterworks, 1945We’re celebrating the first day of spring today here in the southern hemisphere. These September pictures from my Steinweiss calendar are more harvest themed however. I love how the vastness of the Russian steppes has been captured in the illustrative cover for the Rachmaninoff record cover. It calls to mind scenes from Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. The Spanish slant (excuse the pun) to Ravel’s Bolero is apt too. I wouldn’t have picked these for designs from the mid-40s though; I’d have said 50s – Steinweiss was ahead of his time!

Boléro, Maurice Ravel, Columbia Masterworks, c. 1944