MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


CD REVIEW

Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger


 

AmazonUK   AmazonUS

The Penguin Guide to Recorded Classical Music 2008
Ivan March, Edward Greenfield, Robert Layton and Paul Czajkowski
(London: Penguin, 2007) 1588pp.
Paperback ISBN 978-0-141-03336-5

rrp £25 but currently £17.50 ($19.80) from Amazon UK and US

 




 

Brian Wilson’s review of this new Penguin guide is already on site. Brian assesses, in some depth, where the 2008 Guide scores and where it errs - mainly, for him, errors of omission. I intend to cover its usefulness, as a tool, in assessing best buys, and to compare it with its newly published rival the Gramophone Classical Music Guide 2008. My review of that publication is here.

The first thing to note is that from now onwards the full Penguin Guide will be published annually The sort of half-way house that was, for example, the leaner 700-page, The Penguin Guide to Compact Discs & DVDs Yearbook 2006/7 which updated the previous fully fledged Guide, is to be a thing of the past.

With recordings coming at us from all directions through CDs, DVDs, iTunes, Emusic, own label websites, podcasting, it is not surprising that the Penguin Guide will now be published annually. Better go into training to lug its increasing weight home and at the same time build more extra-strong shelving!

By the way it would be useful if somebody, soon, did a survey into buying patterns and to ascertain whether the market, as a whole, is expanding – or not.

So to the comparisons:

First PRICE and PAGES (number and format):-

Penguin: 1,588 pages; £25 but currently £17.50 ($19.80) from Amazon UK & US Gramophone: 1414 pages; AmazonUK £16.24 AmazonUS $23.07

The formats are both large paperback. The Penguin Guide is 6¾ inches wide, the Gramophone just 5¾ inches. Correspondingly, the Penguin column width is greater (by roughly ½ inch); its type size is larger and clearer and the paper stock is whiter so reading is a much easier and more pleasant experience.

First round to Penguin

THE REVIEWS

The Reviewers:

Penguin: a well-established team: Ivan March, Edward Greenfield Robert Layton and Paul Cjajkowski. I’ve often wondered if they lead and edit the work of an unnamed team, if not I have to admire their veracity.

Gramophone: A team of some 80 named experienced reviewers (including Messrs March, Greenfield and Layton), each an expert in the period of music they review.

For both publications, the reviews are graded and organized quite similarly. Four price ranges are indicated, by symbols, in both tomes; Penguin does not gives a symbol for full price releases.

Penguin evaluates using a 1-4 star-rating system ranging upwards from "A fair or somewhat routine performance…" to "…really exceptional on every count" with a key graphic to indicate, "key" recordings that are top recommendations; and a rosette for certain special issues.

Gramophone has a diamond for "simply the best", and 1-3 disc symbols for, "strongly recommended"; "outstanding"; and "classic". When no disc is shown readers must assume that the recording is "recommended – a good performance with the odd reservation". Gramophone’s $ cash bag indicates a low priced but exceptional recording.

For emphasis both Penguin and Gramophone now box reviews of outstanding releases. As to be expected there are differences. For instance both books recommend the Pappano (EMI) and Monteux (Testament) recordings of Massenet’s Manon but only Penguin boxes them. But then Gramophone boxes - with comment in the boxes - eight recordings (led by Heifetz) of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto whereas Penguin boxes only five but also covers over twenty others.

So the judgement here must be purely subjective, either one or the other; however, the keenest and more affluent professionals might plump for both.

Second Round – my cop-out - A Draw

Extras: Here the field is clearer.

Indices

Penguin has none

Gramophone has two: one of "Artists": conductors, orchestras and ensembles, soloists. The other is a very useful index. Ever been frustrated trying to find two reviews of works by two different composers on one record; perhaps the Bruch and Mendelssohn Violin Concertos? Well, Gramophone has an Index of Couplings

Features

Penguin has none beyond the necessary introductory matter.

Gramophone is feature rich. They include the current ‘Records of the Year’; ‘100 Great Recordings’; suggestions of works to build a basic library; and essays on the historical periods of music from Early Music to The Romantic Era and ‘Into the Future’. The latter feature, useful for many who might find ‘Modern’ works ‘difficult’, has a list of seminal works, from Bartók to Varèse; an explanation of the term ‘Serialism’, a list of key terms, ‘Recommended Repertoire Exploration’ and a box entitled ‘Looking into the Future’ with another list that includes recordings of: Adams’s El Niño, Pärt’s Lamentate. Da Pacem Domine and Turnage’s Scherzoid and Yet Another Set To.

Round three to Gramophone

For the serious collector both books are indispensable and complement each other.

Ian Lace

 


 


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Chandos recordings
All Chandos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 

Return to Review Index