New Books: Music Lexikon – Persons on Stamps

It would certainly require a lot of work: the author was well aware of that when in the 1990s he began his endeavor to compile a lexicon of all persons with any known musical activity who also appeared on a postage stamp. But that it would take more than 25 years of intensive research to complete the project was then beyond his wildest dreams.
At PHILA MUSICA 2019 Manfred Gorol could finally show his work. “Das große Musiklexikon – Personen auf Briefmarken von 1840-2015” numbers 4 volumes and presents in around 1,600 pages more than 12,000 concise portraits from “Aabel, Per” (Norway, Michel 1372) to “Zylberstein, Elsa” (Guinea, Michel 6562 and Comores, Block 499). The concise portraits never exceed four lines and are always supplemented with references to the relevant stamps (country, date of issue, Michel number). Thus this lexicon contains some 12,000 comprehensive checklists, including issues up to 2015.