E20 rides into Town
Reviewed in the United States on December 27, 2019
Format: Audio CD
The stakes are so high, it’s time to take Eliette von Karajan at her word. There are twenty five CDs across this DG series – a salute to Herbie on his Eightieth birthday in 1988. According to the booklet, each of them is manacled to one of her paintings. Inspired by Ludwig Köchel, it’s time to christen a new schemata: EvK or E for short. This disc – Herbie’s Strauss recordings from the end of 1972 – is E20 (of 25) according to the booklet. It’s titled “Mash.” Wanting to understand its trail of destruction over the years – and current whereabouts - I contacted Philip Mould and Fiona Bruce from the BBC’s Fake or Fortune. Born of research, this is what they told me:
Eliette presented E20 to Karajan on the eve of his recording of the Four Last Songs with Janowitz in late 1972. Thinking that his end was at hand, Karajan put in the performance of his life. When his consort unexpectedly flew back to Paris, Herbie ordered his entourage to jettison Mash asap.
Sealed in a lead sarcophagus, it crossed the Atlantic in early 1973 where it landed in the lap of Paraguan dictator Alfredo Stroessner who promptly gifted it to Adolf Schicklgruber of Asunción. By any measure, Schicklgruber was a reclusive figure with a penchant for goose-stepping, invading Poland and raising his right-arm to the ceiling. He was blown sky-high in 1975 when two bombs – not one – were placed under his kitchen table by Mossad. E20 survived the blast.
The next official sighting of E20 was in Kampala (the capital of Uganda) – or to be more precise, Idi Amin’s torture chamber. What with the ousting of the Dictator, Mash was once again on the move. It reputedly nested in Elvis’ upstairs bathroom in Graceland and was the last thing seen by the King of Rock and Roll when he expired. It then came into the possession of Italian authorities in the late Seventies. It was used as a bargaining chip in their negotiations with the Sicilian Mafia where the latter offered to return Caravaggio’s Gloria (stolen in 1969) provided E20 did not make landfall in Sicily. Its whereabouts in the Eighties and onwards is hazy. Word has it that it spent some time in a North Korean Re-Education Camp – and lived to tell the tale. It was linked to the death of Kurt Cobain. Much to the consternation of Japanese authorities, it was carried out to sea by the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, only to reappear safe and well on Howland Island during Ballard’s search for Amelia Earhart. It now resides in a vault in Area 51. President Trump’s Executive Order 47652b means that darkness will be its lot for the foreseeable future.
That’s the narrative of the original E20 painting. This CD is emablazoned with a copy of Mash. I prefer these Galleria transfers of the Strauss warhorses to later remasterings, all of which were recorded in the Jesus Christus Church. In comparison, they’re bigger, bolder and brassier. It comes down to this. Are you’re prepared to countenance such malfeasance under your roof? What if it comes in train with E10 or the notorious E24? What say ye, Son of Man?
, so the extra 
was ostensibly added because it was not over twice as long.
.
is "very good", 
is "excellent" and 
is a "masterpiece."
