Record executive R. Peter Munves in the mid-1990s. Photo by Steffen Thalemann.
In Saturday’s (9/14) New York Times, Adam Nossiter writes, “R. Peter Munves, a record company executive who revolutionized the marketing of classical music, died on Aug. 19 in Glen Cove, N.Y. He was 97. His death, in a nursing home, was confirmed by his son Ben. Mr. Munves carved out a moneymaking niche [by] selling classical music to mass audiences by applying the techniques of pop music marketing. In the 1960s, while at Columbia Records, he created a series called ‘Classical Greatest Hits,’ which packaged bits of Brahms, Mozart, Bach and other composers onto single LPs. In 1968, he signed the electronic musician Wendy Carlos to record ‘Switched-On Bach’—pieces by Bach on the Moog synthesizer. Both ideas were big hits … Time said Switched-On Bach was Columbia’s ‘all-time best classical seller.’ Mr. Munves went on to produce an album called ‘Themefinder’—a compilation of 222 well-known themes from classical music … ‘Simply put, Peter Munves was the master salesman of classical music … in the last quarter of the last century,’ Clive Davis, the former president of Columbia Records and chief executive of RCA Music Group, said … ‘He packaged them under a ‘Greatest Hits’ umbrella and sold them to a far greater public than classical music had ever known.’ ”
