Album

Album (pronounced al-buhm)

(1) A bound or loose-leaf book consisting of blank pages, pockets, envelopes etc, for storing or displaying photographs, stamps, or the like, or for collecting autographs.

(2) A digital collection of photographs, stored on a computer or mobile device for viewing, displaying, or sharing.

(3) A record or set of records containing several musical selections, a complete play or opera etc.

(4) The package or container for such a record or records:

(5) A collection of audio recordings released together as a collected work:

(6) A printed book containing an anthology of writings, reproductions of photographs or artwork, musical compositions etc.

(7) In Ancient Rome, a white tablet or register on which the praetor's edicts and other public notices were recorded.

1645–1655: From the late Middle English albo (souvenir book), from the Classical Latin album (a board calked or painted white, onto which was inscribed in black, certain public notices, most notably the Annales Maximi, compiled by the Pontifex Maximus, high priest of the Collegium Pontificum (College of Pontiffs) which listed the year’s most significant events and appointments).  In Latin, the literal meaning of album was "white in color; whiteness", a noun use of the neuter of the adjective albus (white).

Album of Frederick Handel's (1685-1759) Messiah (1741) on 18 x 78 rpm shellac records; Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, under Sir Thomas Beecham (1879-1961), RCA Victor, 1947. 

The word was revived in Prussia circa 1645 by German scholars whose custom was to keep an album (amicorum) of colleagues' signatures, the meaning later expanded to include "book with blank leaves meant to collect signatures and other souvenirs" and according the entry in Samuel Johnson’s (1709-1784) A Dictionary of the English Language (1755), the album was "…a book in which foreigners have long been accustomed to insert autographs of celebrated people."  Photographic albums (in which people mounted photographs) were first advertised in 1859 and in 1882, the publisher Stanley Gibbons added to their catalogue the “stamp album” to meet the demand from the increasingly popular (and sometime profitable) hobby of philately.  The word became the popular descriptor of the (twelve-inch (300 mm)) 33⅓ rpm LP (long-playing) record in the 1950s although the term had earlier been used of (what would later be known as “boxed sets”) the bundled collections of 78 rpm records which, for certain recordings, demanded dozens of disks.  The use of “album” was an allusion to the resemblance of the paper sleeves, in which the shellac (and later polyvinyl chloride (PVC and usually called “vinyl”)) disks were stored, to the pages of autograph or stamp albums.

Lindsay Lohan's discography: Speak (Casablanca, 2005) & A Little More Personal (Raw) (Casablanca, 2005).

The Grateful Dead, Anthem of the Sun (1968).

The twelve-inch vinyl LP was an ideal format for commercial music distributors because it allowed 40-50 minutes of product to be packaged on the one disk, thereby permitting even long opera performances to be released as an album which required usually no more than 3-4 disks.  In popular music, the 50 minute limit (which technology did later permit to be extended to about an hour) was perfect and there many releases which barely troubled the lower end of the limit, format allowing acts to release several albums a year, each with perhaps a dozen songs (“tracks” as they came to be called).  This corresponded well with both creative output and the occasional release of a live performance and when required, double albums could be recorded and by the 1970s, there were even some triple and quadruple-disk albums.

The Incredible String Band, The 5000 Spirits or the Layers of the Onion (1967).

The eight-track cartridge and the much more successful cassette tape proved handy as portable media but operated less as a competitor than an adjunct to the vinyl product and it wasn’t until the compact disc (CD) gained critical mass in the mid-1980s that the 12 inch format came to be supplanted.  The CD was another format which proved ideal for the industry, particularly during the first decade-odd of its existence when the duplication hardware was for most (unlike cassette decks which were bundled with mainstream (3-in-1) stereo systems), prohibitively expensive.  The CD didn’t add greatly to the duration available for recording but the sound quality was superior (some vinyl audiophiles still dispute that), unit production and distribution costs were lower and windfall profits were raked in as the early CDs were sold at high prices and many consumers actually duplicated at least some of their vinyl collection as well as buying new releases.  Thus the “album age” lasted until displaced by the digital era which made possible the consumer’s (probably long-standing) preference to purchase the individual tracks they prefer.

Iron Butterfly, In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida (1968).

Until largely displaced by the smaller CD, the twelve inch album sleeve existed as a form of pop-art which attracted its own school of criticism.  Between the mid-1960s and late 1980s, small industries arose to create the artwork and there was even a niche in specialist publishing which produced compilations, the more psychedelic efforts especially popular and the “gatefold covers” used for the double and triple albums even permitted a wider vista; the results sometimes good, sometimes not.  The so-called “concept album” appeared to have had little effect on the album cover artwork which is surprising given it was such an obvious way to encapsulate a “concept”.  However, the definition of the “concept album” was always vague and while there were plenty with some discernible theme, it could with others be difficult to work out just what the “concept” was supposed to be.  Still, it was a word which suggested ambitions beyond a collection of three-minute singles and in the 1960s there was a growing industry of earnest critics, anxious to find meanings and ready to fill in the gap if none was immediately obvious.  Sometimes they would write as if influenced by TS Elliot, sometimes they'd just gush and if the idea had been delayed a generation, they would probably have called them "paradigm albums".     

There were great moments in album covers but, unfortunately, the memorable cover for Svetlana Gruebbersolvik's My Lips are for Blowing was a fake.  Beginning in the 1960s, the album cover with its standardized 12 x 12 inch (300 x 300 mm) format became a sub-genre of pop-art, the movement lasting until the smaller media of the CD rendered the packaging obsolete.  The twelve inch format has enjoyed something of a twenty-first century revival but the volumes are too low to support the scale of graphic-art industry which once flourished. 

Edition

Edition (pronounced ih-dish-uhn)

(1) One of a series of printings of the same publication, each issued at a different time and differing from another by alterations, additions etc (historically sometimes referred to as impressions).

(2) The format in which a work is published (single volume edition, abridged edition, leather-bound edition, French language edition etc).

(3) In newspaper production, a form of differentiation between different versions of the “same” issue (late edition, city edition etc) and used in a similar manner in radio & television broadcasting.

(4) In book collecting, as “first edition”, a copy of a book from its first release or print run.

(5) The whole number of impressions or copies of a book, newspaper etc, printed from one set of type at one time.

(6) A version of anything (physical and not), often (sometimes misleadingly) in forms such as “limited edition”, “special edition” etc).

1545–1555: From the French édition, from the Middle French, from the Latin ēditiōn- (publication), the stem of ēditiō (a bringing forth, publishing), the construct being ēdit, the past participle of ēdere (to give out; bring forth, produce) + -iōn (the suffix appended to a perfect passive participle to form a noun of action or process, or the result of an action or process).  When the word entered English in the sense of “version, translation, a form of a literary work” (and later “act of publishing”) the dominant linguistic influence was probably the Latin editionem (a bringing forth, producing (although in specialized use it also carried the meaning “a statement, an account rendered”, from the past-participle stem of ēdere, the construct being e(x) (in the sense of “out”) + -dere, a combining form of dare (to give), from the primitive Indo-European root do- (to give).  Edition is a noun; the noun plural is editions.

More Issues Than Vogue sweatshirt from Impressions.

In publishing and (sometimes vaguely) related fields, the terms “issue”, “edition” and “version” have come to be used so loosely that they sometimes function interchangeably but within the publishing industry, there are conventions of use: Issue traditionally was used to refer to a specific release of a recurring publication (magazine, journal, newspaper etc) and tended to be tied to the release sequence (“October 2024 Issue”, “Fall 2024 Issue”, “Issue No. 215” etc).  Issue can however be used also as “re-issue” which refers usually to a “re-print” of a previous edition although it’s not uncommon for blurbs like “re-issued with new foreword” or “re-issued in large print” to appear, the implication being the substantive content remains the same.  Edition was used of a particular form or version of a publication that might differ from previous ones in significant ways which might include text corrections, foreign language translations, or updates, thus descriptions like “German Language Edition”, “Second Edition” or “Abridged Edition.  Some editions (especially those which appear in an irregular sequence) actually give in their title some hint of the nature of what distinguishes them from what came before such as the convention adopted by the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) Diagnostic for their Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).  What the APA does is change the number if a DSM is regarded as a “new edition” but retain the number with an appended “R” (revised) or “TR” (text revision) if it’s an “updated edition”.  Thus has appeared the DSM-III-R (1987), the DSM-IV-TR (2000) and the DSM-5-TR (2022).  There’s some overlap in use for version and this perhaps reflects the influence of technology because it tends to be used of a specific form or variant of a publication such as language (eg Spanish version), format (eg audio version) or materials used in the construction (eg e-book version) rather than an implication of a chronological or iterative update (which in publishing tends to be called an “edition”.  In that the industry differs from IT where version numbers are almost always sequential although the convention widely used in the 1980s in which something like “version 2.4.3” could be interpreted as 2=major release, 4=update and 3= bug fix has long fallen into disuse.

Holy Bible, Revised Standard Version (RSV), 1952 limited edition, first printing by Thomas Nelson & Sons, brown full leather binding with inlaid gold lettering, silk end paper and green cardboard slip case, custom bound by the Chicago Bible Society.  US$750 from Abe Books.

There are also special uses which assume a life of their own, notably the Revised Standard Version (RSV), an English translation of the Bible published in 1952 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the US.  The RSV was a revision of the American Standard Version (ASV, 1901) and was published to render the text into the modern English which readily would be understood by a contemporary reader of modest education.  The object was not to change the meaning of the text but to preserve it and paradoxically this required editing the classic verses written by William Tyndale (circa 1494–1536) or in the King James Version (KJV, 1611) because the over hundreds of years the language had evolved and the much of what was in the original needed to be interpreted for a general audience and the controversy of clerical gatekeepers between God and his people had for centuries been a thing.  The RSV however has not been the last words and those who track novel initializms will have been delighted by the appearance of the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV, released in 1989 by the National Council of Churches (NCC) and the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition (NRSVue), published in 2021.  Students of such things aren’t expecting the next update for at least a decade but finding a name might prove more of a challenge than editing the Old Testament’s Book of Leviticus for a modern audience although those who have worked in biblical forks have found alpha-numeric solutions such as RSV-2CE (Revised Standard Version, Second Catholic Edition (2006))

First Edition of James Joyce’s Ulysses, "Copy No 1", held in the National Library of Ireland.  It contains in Joyce's hand an inscription to the English political activist Harriet Shaw Weaver (1876–1961) who was for decades his patron.

A first edition of Ulysses (1922) by James Joyce (1882–1941) in 2009 sold on the opening day of an antiquarian book fair London for Stg£275,000, at the time a record for a twentieth century first edition.  Ulysses is regarded in the industry as the most collectable modern novel and the first editions, printed on hand-made Dutch fine-paper, are well-catalogued and this was number 45 of the first edition print run (all signed by the author) of 100, one of four not previously accounted for.  It had been sold originally by the Manhattan’s obviously subversive Sunwise Turn bookshop (Ulysses at the times banned in the US) and remained in the possession of the same family, stored in its original box and thus not exposed to light, accounting for the preservation of the construction.  Proving that dealers in literary circles can gush with the finest used car salesmen, the dealer who arranged the sale explained: “The color is amazing – this lovely Aegean Sea, Greek flag blue which would normally have darkened into a more dirty blue but because it has been in a box it is a complete thing of beauty.”  The almost pristine condition was a product also of its history of use, an inspection suggesting it was seemingly unread except for the well-thumbed final chapter where the most salacious passages can be found.  The existence of unread copies of well-known books is not unusual and those notorious for sitting neglected on the bookshelf include “challenging” texts such as A Theory of Justice (1971) by John Rawls (1921–2002), A Brief History of Time (1988) by Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) and Joyce’s own, bafflingly difficult Finnegans Wake (1939).  Intriguingly, the antiquarian book business also includes the category “pre-first edition” (any limited run copy of a book printed before the “first edition” is published).  The apparent oxymoron is explained by “first edition” being an industry definition rather than a literal description; pre-first editions thus analogous with “pre-production” or “final prototype” cars which (if they’ve survive the crusher which claims most) can be prized by collectors.

Among special editions there are, inter alia, “Collector's Editions”, “Anniversary Editions” and even, in one instance, the “So Fetch Edition”.

In commerce, “special editions” have become notable income generators for content providers and the movie business has embraced the concept with editions such as “the making of”, “bloopers & out-takes”, “director’s cut” and others and the idea isn’t new.  Led Zeppelin's eighth studio album (In Through the Out Door (1979)) originally was sold with an outer sleeve of plain brown paper, stamped with nothing more than the while the cardboard sleeve proper within was released with six different versions of the artwork.  Buyers would thus not know which sleeve they were selecting.  There’s nothing to suggest it was anything but a gimmick and neither the band nor the record company were expecting many to keep buying copies in the plain brown wrapped until they’d scored all six covers but there were press reports at the time of "Led Heads" doing exactly that.  The industry took note.

Taylor Swift's The Anthology, one of 34 available editions of The Tortured Poets Department.

The attraction of releasing multiple versions of essentially the same product with variations restricted to some added content or detail differences in the packaging is that the additional costs in production and distribution are marginal yet there’s sometimes it’s possible to charge a premium for the “non-standard editions”.  The practice had for decades been quite a thing with car manufacturers but the music business came also to like the idea because, unlike with the cars where customers tended to buy one at a time, obsessive fans of musicians might be persuaded they needed several copies of what was essentially the same thing.  Leftist UK student site The Tab noted few music fans were as obsessive as Taylor Swift’s (b 1989) Swifties and, more significantly, they were also impressively numerous and thus an irresistible catchment of disposable income.  What The TAB noted was the almost simultaneous release of a remarkable (and apparently unprecedented) of 34 versions of Ms Swift’s eleventh album, The Tortured Poets Department (2024), something which as well as generating revenue has the statistical benefit of afforcing her presence on the charts, every sale counting as a 1.0.  Some were technologically deterministic in than four were released as audio cassettes and nine were exclusively digital bit most were essentially the same product except for the inclusion of a bonus track and there were some available only through the retailer Target.  The most obsessive Swifties obviously could buy all 34 editions but for those which want just an exhaustive collection of the music, it appeared all was included on the accurately named The Anthology so there was that.  One day, all 34, still (where appropriate) unopened in their original packaging will appear begin to appear on auction sites.  The approach attracted some adverse comment (which the Swifties doubtless ignored) and probably confirmed in the mind of JD Vance (b 1984; US senator (Republican-Ohio) since 2023) that childless cat ladies are evil.

All editions: The Tab’s The Tortured Poets Department discography:

1. Collector’s Edition Deluxe with The Manuscript
2. Collector’s Edition Deluxe with The Albatross
3. Collector’s Edition Deluxe with The Bolter
4. Collector’s Edition Deluxe with The Black Dog
5. Standard album and The Manuscript
6. Standard and The Manuscript (signed)
7. Standard and But Daddy I Love Him (Acoustic)
8. Standard and Guilty As Sin? (Acoustic)
9. Standard and Down Bad (Acoustic)
10. Standard and Fortnight (Acoustic)
11. Standard and Fresh Out The Slammer (Acoustic)
12. Target exclusive with The Albatross
13. Target exclusive with The Bolter
14. Target exclusive with The Black Dog
15. Target exclusive vinyl
16. The Manuscript vinyl (pressing one)
17. The Manuscript vinyl (pressing two)
18. The Albatross vinyl
19. The Bolter vinyl
20. The Black Dog vinyl
21. The Manuscript vinyl
22. The Anthology
23. Standard and The Black Dog ‘voice memo’
24. Standard album and Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me voice memo
25. Standard album and Cassandra voice memo
26. Standard album (digital)
27. Standard album and Daddy I Love Him (Acoustic)
28. Standard album and loml (live from Paris)
29. Standard album and My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys (live from Paris)
30. Standard album and The Alchemy / Treacherous mashup (live from Paris)
31. The Manuscript cassette
32. The Bolter cassette
33. The Albatross cassette
34. The Black Dog cassette

1976 Lincoln Continental Mark IV, Lipstick edition.  The shade of red appears to be close to Dior's lipstick #744 (Party Red).

The car manufacturers have produced at least hundreds of “special editions”, a concept to which they kept returning because it was lucrative, the things usually profitable to an extent exceeding greatly the nominal sum of their parts.  Quite how many have existed over the years is difficult to estimate because, in addition to the well-documented examples from manufacturers which were sold nationally or even globally, some were offered only briefly or regionally and barely advertised.  Additionally, dealers or sometimes an agglomeration of them would also conjure up their own "special editions" so the total of such things is probably in the thousands.  Sometimes, fashion houses were paid to lend their name, AMC teaming with Pierre Cardin, Levi Strauss (Volkswagen also had a denim-trimmed Beetle though without a specific brand attribution) & Oleg Cassini while the Lincoln Continental at times was offered with themes by Emilio Pucci, Cartier, Bill Blass and de Givenchy although the most memorable were the reputed 500 “Lipstick editions”, a study in red & white, quite a sight given the expanse of sheet metal and leather.

1969 Dodge Charger R/T SE (left), 1972 Chrysler VH Valiant Charger 770SE E55 (centre left), 1976 Holden HX LE (centre right) and 2002 Mazda Miata Special Edition (MX-5 in some markets) (right).

In most of the “special” editions, offered over the decades, it was only in the advertising or press kits that terms like “special edition” or “limited edition” appeared.  Sometimes though, such physical badges did appear on the vehicles. In the US, on the 1969 Dodge Chargers with the SE option, the badge included both “SE” & “Special Edition” while in Australia, only “SE” appeared on the 1972 Chrysler VH Valiant Charger 770SE E55 (one of the industry’s longer model names) although the marketing material called it a “Special Edition”, a usage borrowed from the parent corporation in the US and even the badge used was the same part as that which had been stuck on the 1970 Dodge Challenger SE.  Holden’s frankly cynical (but most profitable) 1976 LE spelled out “Limited Edition” under a “LE” (in a larger font) while Mazda used only the full term for the Miata (MX-5) Special Edition models.

Limited Edition, less limited profit: The Holden LE

1976 HX Holden LE

By the mid 1970s, the market had come to prefer the cheaper, smaller and easier to use cassette tapes which meant warehouses were soon full of the once desirable 8-track players and buyers were scarce.  In Australia, GMH (General Motor Holden) by 1975 had nearly a thousand in the inventory which also bulged with 600-odd Monaro body-shells, neither of which were attracting customers; fashions change and both had become unfashionable.  Fortunately, GMH was well-acquainted with the concept of the "parts-bin special edition" whereby old, unsaleable items are bundled together and sold at what appears a discount, based for advertising purposes on a book-value retail price there’s no longer any chance of realizing.  Thus created was the high-priced, limited edition LE (which stood for "Limited Edition", the Monaro name appearing nowhere although all seem still to use the name), in metallic crimson with gold pin striping, golf "honeycomb" aluminium wheels, fake (plastic) burl walnut trim and crushed velour (polyester) upholstery; in the 1970s, this was tasteful.  Not designed for the purpose, the eight-track cartridge player crudely was bolted to the console but five-hundred and eighty LEs were made, GMH pleasantly surprised at how quickly they sold with no need to resort to discounting.  When new, they listed at Aus$11,500, a pleasingly profitable premium of some 35% above the unwanted vehicle on which it was based; these days, examples are advertised for sale for (Aus$) six-figure sums and anyone who now buys a LE does so for reasons other than specific-performance.  Although of compact size (in US terms) and fitted with a 308 cubic inch (5.0 litre) V8, it could achieve barely 110 mph (175 km/h), acceleration was lethargic by earlier and (much) later standards yet fuel consumption was high; slow and thirsty the price to be paid for the early implementations of the emission control plumbing bolted to engines designed during more toxic times.      

1971 Holden HQ Monaro LS 350

The overwrought and bling-laden Holden HX typified the tendency during the 1970s and of US manufacturers and their colonial off-shoots to take a fundamentally elegant design and, with a heavy-handed re-style, distort it into something ugly.  A preview of the later “malaise era” (so named in the US for many reasons), it was rare for a facelift to improve the original.  The 1971 HQ Holden was admired for an austerity of line and fine detailing; what followed over three subsequent generations lacked that restraint.  The HX LE was one of a number of "special" and "limited" editions offered during the era and it remains one of the few remembered.

Concerto

Concerto (pronounced kuhn-cher-toh or kawn-cher-taw (Italian))

(1) A composition for an orchestra and one or more principal instruments (ie soloists), usually in symphonic form. The classical concerto consisted typically of several movements, and often a cadenza.

(2) An alternative word for ripieno.

1519: From the Italian concertare (concert), the construct being con- + certō.  The Latin prefix con- is from the preposition cum (with) and certō is from certus (resolved, certain) +‎ -ō; the present infinitive certāre, the perfect active certāvī, the supine certātum.  Concerto grosso (literally “big concert”; plural concerti grossi) is the more familiar type of orchestral music of the Baroque era (circa 1600–1750), characterized by contrast between a small group of soloists (soli, concertino, principale) and the full orchestra (tutti, concerto grosso, ripieno). The titles of early concerti grossi often reflected their performance locales, as in concerto da chiesa (church concerto) and concerto da camera (chamber concerto, played at court), titles also applied to works not strictly concerti grossi.  Ultimately the concerto grosso flourished as secular court music.  Concerto is a noun; the noun plurals are concertos & concerti.

The origin of the Italian word concerto is unclear although most musicologists hold it’s meant to imply a work where disputes and fights are ultimately resolved by working together although the meaning did change over the centuries as musical traditions evolved.  Concerto was first used 1519 in Rome to refer to an ensemble of voices getting together with music although the first publication with this name for works for voices and instruments is by the Venetian composer Andrea Gabrieli (circa 1532-1585) and his nephew Giovanni Gabrieli (circa 1555-1612), a collection of concerti, dated 1587. Up to the first half of the seventeenth century, the term concerti was used in Italy for vocal works accompanied by instruments, many publications appearing with this title although initially, the Italian word sinfonia (from the Latin symphōnia, from the Ancient Greek συμφωνία (sumphōnía) was also used.  It was during the Baroque era the concerto evolved into a recognizably modern form.

Deep Purple and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under Malcolm Arnold: Concerto for Group and Orchestra, 24 September 1969.

Although pop groups playing with orchestras is now not rare, there’s never been anything quite like Jon Lord’s (1941-2012) Concerto for Group and Orchestra, performed on 24 September 1969 at the Royal Albert Hall by Deep Purple and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under Malcolm Arnold (1921-2006).  The work was a true concerto in three movements: Energico, Lento and Con Fuoco; an attempt to fuse the sound of an orchestra with that of a heavy metal band.  It proved a modest commercial success and in the twenty-first century there has been a revival of interest with many performances.

Cover of the original Tetragrammaton pressing of Deep Purple's second album The Book of Taliesyn (1968).

Although something very different from what most rock bands were doing in 1969, Lord's concerto really was a synthesis of some of the material two of the bands previous three albums, both of which contained threads in the tradition of the German classical music in which Lord had been trained.  Recorded during their early quasi-psychedelic period, the title of their second album had been borrowed from The Book of Taliesin (Llyfr Taliesin in the Welsh), a fourteenth century manuscript written in Middle Welsh which contains some five dozen poems, some pre-dating the tenth century while the third owed some debt to the seventeenth & eighteenth.  The Concerto for Group and Orchestra was very much in the vein of Deep Purple's early output but what was at the time unexpected was that less than a year after the performance, the band released the album In Rock, a notable change in musical direction and one decidedly not orchestral.  Prior to In Rock, Deep Purple's output had been eclectic with no discernible thematic pattern, a mix of influences from pop, blues and psychedelia, delivered with the odd classical flourish so suddenly to produce one of the defining albums of heavy metal was unexpected in a way the Concerto was not.  For the band however, it was the performance at the Royal Albert Hall which proved the anomaly, In Rock providing the template which would sustain them, through personnel changes and the odd hiatus, well into the twenty-first century.

Cover of the original Harvest pressing of Deep Purple's fourth album: Concerto for Group and Orchestra (1969).

Lord wasn’t discouraged by the restrained enthusiasm of the music press, describing critics as “…an archaic, if necessary, appendage to the music business” and pursued variations of the concept for the rest of his life.  The most noted was Windows (1974), a collaboration with German conductor and composer Eberhard Schoener (b 1938) which included Continuo on B-A-C-H (B-A-C-B# in musical notation), a piece which built on the unfinished triple fugue that closed Johann Sebastian Bach's (1685–1750) Art of the Fugue, written in the last years of his life.  Although not included with the original release on vinyl, the band did perform some of their other material just before the concerto began including a song which would appear on In Rock.  That was Child in Time, a long and rather dramatic piece with some loud screaming which must have been quite unlike anything which some of that night's older critics might previously have enjoyed and perhaps it affected them.  Unlike pop music’s fusions with jazz, attempts to synthesize with classical traditions never attracted the same interest or approbation, the critical consensus seemingly that while a cobbler could create a hobnail boot for a ballerina, most found it hard to imagine why.

Jon Lord with Mercedes-Benz 300 SL (W198, 1954-1963) Gullwing (1954-1957), photographed by Fin Costello, Los Angeles, 1975.

Plenty of folk did however see why and thirty years on, on 25 & 26 September 1999 the piece was again performed live at the Royal Albert Hall as the culmination of a concert with additional material.  The original score had been lost, compelling Lord and two collaborators to recreate by listening to recordings, synchronised with the video, the process said to be "challenging" even for professional musicians, one of whom was the piece’s composer.  Released on CD and DVD, interest was stimulated worldwide and Deep Purple embarked on a tour, performing the concerto in Japan, Europe and South America, in each location teaming with local orchestras.  Between then and his death in 2012, Lord was involved with almost a dozen performances around the world including one staged in Dublin with the RTÉ Concerto Orchestra, marking the 40^th anniversary.  Now in the public domain, musicians continue to explore the Concerto for Group and Orchestra, a piece which in 1969 most critics had dismissed as little more than a curiosity.

Lindsay Lohan in two-tiered deep purple dress, MTV Movie Awards, Universal City, Los Angeles, California, May 2008.

Musicologists working in the field of classical music focus much on the intricacy of a composition’s structure and in that they’re not quite analogous with structuralists in other disciplines but there’s intricacy too in the classification of works and they worked out while all concertos include a soloist and orchestra, not all works with soloist and orchestra are concertos.  The term “concerto” requires a certain arrangement of instrumentation but the word implies also specific musical form and structure. Although many modern forms of “popular” music have been derided as “formulaic”, conventions were followed also by classical composers and concertos tended to conform to a three-movement structure (fast–slow–fast), something exploited by the disruptive modernists of the twentieth century who wrote concertos which ignored all conventions, delighting some critics while appalling others; listeners (if sales on vinyl or optical disc are a guide) preferred to stick to the classics.

In those classics, the typical pattern was a first movement in the sonata-allegro form with a double exposition (ie the orchestra presenting a theme), followed by the soloist’s contribution which might include a cadenza (an extended passage showcasing the performer’s virtuosity).  The point about the “concerto” was that while a prominent voice, the soloist’s contribution was interpolated to emphasize their interplay with the orchestra (“in dialogue” as the critics sometimes put it) and in that, while often the central figure, the soloist was a part of the texture.  The point at which a piece becomes “a concerto” was of course influenced by the label the composer attached but the form sometimes transcended the tag, Beethoven’s Ludwig van Beethoven’s (circa 1770–1827) Fantasy for piano, vocal soloists, mixed chorus, and orchestra, Op. 80 (1808 and styled usually as Choral Fantasy), as the name suggests, includes solo contributions but was not called a “concerto” and Gustav Mahler (1860–1911) made much use of vocal soloists without troubling to call the compositions “concertos”.  At the margins, the definitions are fuzzy; Maurice Ravel’s (1875–1937) Tzigane (1924) was a piece for violin and orchestra (and very much a piece for a virtuosic violinist) but it’s classified as a rhapsody because the two elements don’t “interplay” as is demanded by a concerto and in the same vein, while oratorios and cantatas often include solo vocal lines, they augment the orchestral contribution rather than being “in dialogue”.

An improbable sextet: Deep Purple with Malcolm Arnold, London, 1969.  The sub-editor failed to correct the caption, Jon Lord standing second from left.  Left to right: percussionist Ian Paice (b 1948), keyboard player Jon Lord (1941-2012), conductor Malcolm Arnold (1921-2006), guitarist Richie Blackmore (b 1945), vocalist Ian Gillan (b 1945) and bassist Roger Glover (b 1945).

Until well into the twentieth century, critics and academics seemed untroubled whether structure matched label but, reflecting trends in other fields, there emerged the desire to apply clear taxonomies to what historically had been a fluid practice.  The argument was “if it sounds like a concerto it must be described as one” and in this there may have been some interest from the industry because the mass-production in the 1950s of long-playing (LP) records made viable the distribution (on sometimes as few as one or two records) of even the longer concertos which once might have demanded two dozen.  So, if the structure and function of a piece not so-named resembled that of a concerto and the soloist(s) played dominant, virtuosic roles in clear contrast to the orchestra, it made sense for publishers to seek to fit the work into familiar (and importantly, popular) categories.  Even in a case where intentions were made explicit, record labels preferred to “tidy up” the lists.  Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s (1756–1791) Sinfonia Concertante for Violin, Viola and Orchestra in E-flat major emerged from the composer’s experiments with the “sinfonia concertante” genre (blending elements of symphony & concerto), thus the hybrid (Concertante) label.  Despite that, in some publishers’ databases, it’s filed now among the concertos reflecting an interest in things "doing what it says on the tin".

Triptych

Triptych (pronounced trip-tik)

(1) In fine art, a set of three panels or compartments side by side, bearing pictures, carvings, or the like.  Panels are sometimes hinged so the two wing panels fold over the larger central one; historically, they were often used as altarpieces.

(2) By extension, any group of three people or things, if representative of a particular field or theme.

(3) A hinged, three-leaved tablet, written on, in ancient Greece and Rome, with a stylus.

(3) In philately, a set of three se-tenant (from the French se tenant (holding each other), the present participle of se tenir (to hold each other) postage stamps that form a composite picture.

(4) In film production, a film or video sequence intended to be shown on a triple screen with the use of linked projectors.

(5) In figurative use, any set of three closely connected ideas or concepts with a constant thematic link.

1731: From the Ancient Greek τρίπτυχος (tríptukhos) (consisting of three layers, threefold; of three plates), the construct being τρι- (tri-) (three) + ptych (stem of ptýx) (plate) and ptykhos, genitive of ptyx, (fold or layer) (and influenced by πτυχή (ptukhḗ) (a fold).  The use to describe three-part altar-piece carvings or pictures hinged together was first noted in 1849 and was based on the Italian triptica (which substituted tri- (three) on model of diptych (from the Late Latin diptycha (plural), from the Ancient Greek, neuter plural of δίπτυχος (díptukhos) (folded; double), the construct being δι- (di-) + πτυχή (ptukhḗ) (fold, layer).

The Descent from the Cross (1614) by Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640).

A triptych is a specific form of the polyptych, the term for all multi-panel works.  Traditionally, the centre is the largest but works can be constructed from identically sized pieces or may be wholly asymmetric.  Triptychs can be an integrated work, thematically connected in some other way, or three unrelated panels.  Origin of the layout is in the sacred art of the early Christian church, and triptychs attained great popularity in the medieval Byzantine church.  Artistic merit aside, the hinged-triptychs were a good design because they could be folded into a type of self-contained packing crate for ease of transportation, probably the main reason for the common 25/50/25% aspect ratio.  The format migrated, first to Islam and Buddhism, later to secular art including sculpture and jewelry.  Structurally, the critical point about the triptych is that it should be displayed with the three components joined together.  If their pieces are intended to be shown together but hung with a gap between, that properly is called "sectional art". 

Yes, Yessongs (1973), polyptych created with two diptychs 

In the era of the 12 inch vinyl long-playing (LP) album, record album, the covers were a sub-genre of pop-art and gatefold covers (two sleeves hinged at the centre) were sometimes used, even when the product shipped as a single piece of vinyl.  Sometimes there were even triple albums (finding that not enough, Chicago issued a set of four), described sometimes by critics as the "dreaded triple album" but in the era, there was little attempt to take advantage of the inherent structure of the packaging to create triptychs, something which seems surprising given the emphasis which was put on the cover art.  Yes, with the release of Yessongs (1973) was one of the few to take up the idea but they used four-fold packaging, creating a sort of polyptych with a pair of diptychs.

Studies in monochrome in three aspects of Lindsay Lohan smoking (2014).

New Zealand photographer Jane Trotter deconstructed the history of the triptych and identified four categories by which they may be classified.  The first is the Three Part Narrative, there images telling a story, the implication of course the beginning, middle and end of the three-act play.  Such a triptych is inherently sequential with each panel contingent upon the other, the whole story not fully revealed unless all three are viewed together.  The second category is Transformation, often the representation of the passing of time or a depiction of something symbolic.  A typical example is the one flower shown as a bud, in full bloom and finally withered, a metaphor of life and death, the transience of beauty and impermanence of life.  Third is what she calls Reconstruct to give New Meaning.  It sounds ominously post-modern but it really describes giving the viewer a new perspective of perhaps familiar objects by using fragments of a whole and re-assembling them in a novel way or having them juxtaposed with something unexpected.  Once something is reconstructed to give new meaning, it is possible some of the new meaning will come from the viewer and that it may differ between individuals who might see different connections between objects or afford some a prominence to the extent others are ignored.  Her final category is Expand Visual Connections.  Sometimes, she notes, a single image isn’t enough to encapsulate or complete the whole visual conception of a work.  This can be done by using three images to create something unified or they can act as agents of disassociation, depending on the effect the artist is trying to achieve.

The Garden of Earthly Delights, oil on oak panels by Hieronymus Bosch (circa 1450–1516)

One of the best known triptychs is the much re-produced The Garden of Earthly Delights (believed to have been painted between 1490-1510) by Hieronymus Bosch; the title is a modern designation and nothing has survived which gives any clue about what the artist intended it to be called.  The three panels represent (1) the Garden of Eden, (2) a fantastical imagining of life which is not Earth yet not quite Heaven and often thought to be the artist’s conception of a utopia and (3) Hell, a subject which Bosch painted several times.  Theologians, art critics, psychoanalysts and others have over the centuries written extensively on the work and while opinion will vary about what their thoughts reveal about the intent of the artist, their pieces can be an insight into their own world view. 

For very good, practical reasons, an artist will often focus more on their relationships with their patron or their critics and less on the viewers of their works.  However, modern technology now allows an objective measure of at least one aspect of the viewers’ reaction to art and a heat-map of the public exhibition space in the gallery of the Prado museum in Madrid The Garden of Earthly Delights revealed visitors spent most time looking at right-hand panel: Hell.  Clearly, eternal damnation draws the eye more than the paradise of prelapsarian Eden or the pleasantly sinful life of man in the world after the fall.  A reasonable conclusion of the meaning of the triptych is that “for everything one does there’s a price to be paid” and it may have been this theme which focused the mind.

Researchers from the Miguel Hernández University in Alicante used spectacles with sensors to track eye movements and responses in a sample of 52 visitors and found that on average, 16 seconds per square metre were devoted to the left panel, 26 seconds per metre to the centre and a winning 33.2 seconds to each square metre of Hell.  The work typically absorbed four minutes of each viewer’s time.  What was also discovered was that the pupils of females contemplating the Eden panel swelled from 5.2 to 5.4 mm when observing the delights panel and reached 5.8 when contemplating Hell.  In contrast, the pupils of men reacted in a different way, at their most dilated (8.6mm) when looking at the delights, followed by the Hell which scored 6.8 and Eden at 6.4.

Three studies of Isabel Rawsthorne (1966) by Irish artist Francis Bacon (1909–1992).