Penguin CD guide or year book; difference?

Yes, there's a big difference. The main guide is published biennially and is pretty comprehensive. The yearbook used to be published on alternate years and include all the stuff published in between. However, as the number of discs available increased a number of things were moved from the main guide into the year book (such as recital discs - therefore my six disc DG set of Horowitz playing various things on the piano is there and not in the main guide - hyperion's Schubert song series is also covered there in much greater detail than the main guide).

In short, it's the main guide that you want. The most recent yearbook (given that it was published in 2004 whereas the most recent guide dates from just a few months back) is of fairly limited use.

As suggested in recent posts on the 'What are you listening to' thread, the guide, while useful, is just that, and you need to use your own tastes as a lens for what it says.

regards, Tam

Thanks Tam

Exactly what I wanted to know

Chris

Milo

I agree entirely with what Tam says. The Penguin Guide, while hardly infallible, is pretty damn good and is certainly a better way of choosing discs than the prettiness of the cover, the name of the perfomer(s), the label concerned, or sheer pot luck.

I'd suggest that you consider supplementing it with the Rough Guide to Classical Music, which is much less comprehensive but which provides an often markedly different viewpoint. I have found that, when both Guides agree on a particular recording, you're on pretty safe ground.

Graham

quote:

Originally posted by graham55:
The Penguin Guide, while hardly infallible, is pretty damn good and is certainly a better way of choosing discs than the prettiness of the cover, the name of the perfomer(s), the label concerned, or sheer pot luck.

It's a useful guide, but so is a trusted performer.

I find the reviews on Gramophone's website useful too - I don't always agree, but they tend to be better informed than the Penguins. The website is a little creaky though so be patient.

EW

Another option is to see if your local Library has a music section.

Basil

That's if you have a local library.

Ours in Limehouse closed a couple of years ago in a cost cutting exercise.

And, to be honest, their selection was pretty poor.

Graham

I was going to add that very proviso, but was interrupted mid-post!

It has been over six years since I last used one!

quote:

Originally posted by graham55:
That's if you have a local library.

Ours in Limehouse closed a couple of years ago in a cost cutting exercise.

And, to be honest, their selection was pretty poor.

That's a shame - both Hanley and Newcastle (u-L) libraries local to me have decent music sections, although Hanley library has just introduced one-week loan periods, thus meaning that one's CDs are ALWAYS overdue. Oh and considerable quantities of really good stuff seems to be "vanishing" - I don't know if they're decommissioning classical stuff that doesn't go out much.

On the whole pretty good, but it's deteriorating and will probably continue to get worse, like many other things in modern society.

EW

I lost faith in anything the Gramophone Magazine had to say when I read a review of the Erioca in the HMV LP recording of Furtwangler and VPO, which stated (in a very rough review of the performance) that Furtwangler made the same tiresome and predictable tempo changes not only in the exposition, but also in its repeat... Od Dear! If there was one exposition repeat Furtwangler never made it was in the Erioca, which in his reading (for HMV in the studio) would have taken the total playing time to perhaps twenty miutes for the first movement. I was familiar with the reading in any case, and spell-bound by the ferocity of the review, but when I got to the bit about the repeat, I threw the rag into the bin and cancelled my subscrition. I have never bought a copy since and that was in the mid eighties. I used to find it useful to read what the month's new issues and re-releases were, but I found the shop was more helpful after that!

It was more than obvious that the reviewer disliked Furtwangler, but was actually confusing the performance with the contemporary recording for Decca, where Erich Kleiber and the VPO took the repeat! He clearly had not actually listened to the record. Too bad, and very amateurish. The editor should have pulled it up, in my view...

Fredrik

I think the Penguin Guide, the Grammophone Guide and the Rough Guide in combination with this forum and the http://www.good-music-guide.com/forum are very good starting places in order to build a record collection of classical. Nothing is really better than the other. After a while you start to see which reviewer/magazine/participant of this forum has a taste similar to yours and you also can start to experiment more on your own (getting more deeply into certain composers/performers). Both reviewers in magazines and participant have their own individual taste and it's up to you if you want to follow their recommendations. I just cannot understand why one way of developing knowledge/taste should be better than the other. E.g. I rapidly saw that the Penguin guide suites my taste more than the Grammophone guide, and in my case this only has to do with individual taste.

I don't like the Penguin guide at all - the choices seem to come across as being made by committee. Gramophone online is a bit more reliable. At least if you know who wrote the review and have got some idea of their preferences then you've got more chance of making an informed choice. Equally building a library on Radio 3 is good if you get to listen to the program and hear what criteria they made their choices.
David