Susan Blond and Peter Munves attend Susan Blond, Inc. 20th Anniversary Party at Michael's on March 1, 2007 in New York City. Photo: Getty Images
The staid world of classical music was forever changed by dynamic record company executive R. Peter Munves, who brought pop sensibilities to selling art music. Manhattan-born Munves worked his way through the music industry to eventually become director of classical music at RCA Records by 1970. On his way to that role, he broke new ground by releasing the first Classical Greatest Hits LPs, which packed together well-recognised slices of much larger works into snack-sized compilations by different composers. He also commissioned genre-bending records such as 1968’s Switched on Bach, on which classical favourites were reinterpreted on a Moog synthesizer. A master salesman, Munves continued to find ways to repackage the classics for an audience which had never contemplated listening to such music before. Munves died on August 19 aged 97. — Agencies
