Unit 3 Assignment 3 - CD Cover (Beethoven: 9 Symphonies - Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique / Gardiner)

Unit 3 Assignment 3 – Rationale

For my CD Cover assignment, I chose John Eliot Gardiner’s renditions of Ludwig van Beethoven’s 9 symphonies. Throughout the CD Cover design, I wanted to emulate the dramatic atmosphere that can be heard within Beethoven’s symphonies. I incorporated high contrast and high levels of shadows, dark yet bold colours that contrasted the Romantic era and bold letters on the front cover that emulated his dramatic music.

My portrait of Beethoven can be seen on the front and the back of the CD design, where on the front, Beethoven’s angular and fierce expression is visible through the “rip” of the CD cover, and on the back the same portrait, just more full, is visible along the side. I wanted to have my portrait of Beethoven interpret his fierceness and serious expressions that he is typically seen as in his own portraits, except I didn’t want to use the typical portrait of Beethoven that was commonly found on other CD covers. Instead, I used the illustration of Beethoven from A Clockwork Orange as inspiration for my own portrait, as I found it highly interpreted his seriousness and almost angry expression the most, which further emulated the drama of Beethoven and his music. Using charcoal, I interpreted Beethoven’s intense portrait, with high shadow and high contrast, then scanned the portrait onto Photoshop, where further altering pursued, not much, but a few alterations were made for it to fit the CD cover design.

With the use of dark red and yellow, stock photos of old music sheets, fancier text along the side, the back and a little on the front of the CD cover, and a wrinkled paper sort of texture throughout the CD cover design, I felt I succeeded in emulating the Romantic era where Beethoven’s music is from essentially. I also felt I strongly represented the drama and expressive nature of the Romantic Era through these specific elements.

I would have to say that the strongest selling point of my CD cover is the drama of it, as I’ve mentioned before. The high contrasts, dark shadows, dark yet vibrant colours and the expressive portrait of Beethoven all, I feel, strongly interpret the Romantic era as well as the very nature of Beethoven’s music to be overall, very dramatic.