She often has not received her due as an artist. Here is an admiring take by the critic Bryce Morrison: "Unlike Horowitz, to take an extreme example, she never sought to stun and bemuse, to leave her audience more exhausted than elated, or to create an impossibly wide chasm between artist and listener. Hers was a voice that ‘connected’, leaving her audience refreshed and, as she would have wished, conscious of the miracle of great music."
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| Myra Hess |
Although these recordings are otherwise available, I did want to bring them to you because they show the artist's beautiful touch and sensitivity. Another reason is that it allows me to display an example of the cover designs by Atelier Cassandre.
Atelier Cassandre was the studio, I believe, of A.M. Cassandre, one of the greatest graphic artists of the 20th century. It's by no means clear that Cassandre himself designed this cover, or others in a very long series that I believe originated with Pathé in France, but whatever their provenance, they are all quietly superb.
While this is not as good an example as some, it nonetheless displays many of the series' characteristics. First, the extraordinarily elegant typography for "Myra Hess." Cassandre himself was a typographer, whose most notable contribution was Peignot. My favorite Cassandre font is Bifur, which is Art Deco incarnate. Another characteristic is the use on an inset photo or illustration. The result is simple and clean - and could hardly be more out of style. You can see a page of examples of these covers, concentrating on typography, here.
