Product description
In the rich history of rock music, few names have shone out as consistently as that of Queen. With a career spanning over five decades, the band is one of the world’s most successful of all time. During this period, Queen came to embody the power of musical creativity and most of their songs topped the charts for weeks on end. They created their own musical universe, made up of a combination of hard rock, glam rock, pop, funk and opera, shattering the boundaries between the genres. Montblanc dedicates its Great Characters Homage to Queen Limited Edition 1975 to these icons of rock music, inspired by the album A Night At The Opera. Black and white—no other colour combination describes such stark contrast and no other could better symbolise the extent of Queen’s musical universe. For a time, The Black and the White was even pencilled in as the title of their second studio album and later became the motto for Mercury’s spectacular birthday party eleven years on. The Limited Edition 1975 also appears in this contrasting guise. The band’s fourth studio album surpassed everything that had gone before and is considered one of the most elaborately produced albums of the 20th century. The four artists who performed on it have gone down in history: Freddie Mercury, the charismatic front man with a vocal range spanning several octaves and a rich vibrato; Brian May, the virtuoso guitarist with his unmistakable electric guitar sound; John Deacon, the highly creative bass player; and Roger Taylor, the rhythmic heart of the band. As a tribute to these four exceptional musicians, their stylised portraits are immortalised on the black cap of the writing instrument, inspired by the iconic Queen II and Hot Space album covers. The album A Night at the Opera—and in particular its centrepiece Bohemian Rhapsody—exemplifies Freddie Mercury’s dream of creating a record of epic proportions. The six-minute single combines piano ballads, opera and rock, layered with cascading operatic vocals and quirky references to characters such as Galileo or Scaramouche from the Commedia dell’Arte. Mercury himself, renowned for his flamboyant stage costumes, often adopted the guise of another Commedia dell’Arte figure, the Harlequin. His famous tight-fitting unitard with its black-and-white diamond pattern underlined his unconventional stage persona and inspired the rhomboidal design of the barrel. The edition also honours Brian May and his pivotal role in shaping the album’s sound by giving the platinum-coated cone a distinctive look reminiscent of the volume and tone control knobs on his legendary electric guitar. The cone ring is embossed with the album title A Night at the Opera. Its release year, 1975, inspired the decision to limit the edition to 1,975 fountain pens and 1,975 rollerballs. The crown worn by Mercury during the closing rendition of God Save The Queen inspired the silhouette of the cap top and serves as a metaphor for the band’s majestic character and enduring musical legacy. The platinum-coated clip, designed to resemble a microphone stand, references one of the most iconic elements of Freddie Mercury’s live performances.