The Penguin Guide to Compact Discs and DVDs 2004 (Penguin Guide to Recorded Classical Music) [Paperback]

Collections of shorter pieces are, by and large, left until next year's edition. The reviewing team here concentrate on the major, and not-so-major, pieces by a wide range of composers. There are 1600 pages, but even so they have had to be selective , and their decision to review only those recordings which may safely be regarded as amongst the best is sensible. With so many excellent discs around, there's not much point wasting space on the non-competitive ones. Of course we all have our own ideas of the 'best' (and one of the pleasures is disagreeing occasionally with the reviewers), but between them these writers have decades of experience listening to recordings and concerts. They are a pretty reliable guide....

New to this edition is the inclusion of 'key' recordings. These are recommendations for the basis of a classical collection, and again the choices are on the whole very sensible. They are indicated by a key symbol in the text, and also are listed at the back of the Guide; so if you are in a desparate hurry you can just glance at the suggested recording of, say, Shostakovich 5 before dashing out or ordering on the Web. The old 'rosette' symbol has also been retained for discs dear to particular reviewers. I am glad of this, as there is usually something special about them.

There are also reviews of some SACD's and opera DVD's. But as the authors point out, some SACD's are very expensive and we are currently in a very price-conscious age. It will be interesting to see..(I think SACD prices will drop here in the UK).

A couple of new discs I was personally delighted to see listed are Barbirolli's live Elgar 1st. Symphony on BBC Legends, and an amazing Handel Fireworks Music recorded by a huge wind orchestra in the middle of the night in the 1950's!(on Testament).

This is the sort of guide that pays for itself, and will be an absorbing read for anyone interested in classical recordings. But you may end up using your credit card rather a lot. I have done, already.

One expects a slight British bias but the Guide has become a Simon Rattle Fan Club. He can do no wrong and is top choice in whatever he does. One need only look at the listings for complete Beethoven Symphonies. Karajan, Toscanini, Wand ,Jochum (to name a few) barely rate a paragraph while Szell has been banished from the complete set area and relegated to the individual issues. Rattle's set gets 5 paragraphs of mostly fluff.

As to errors here is a small sampling. If I listed all I have found so far I would excede Amazon's word limit. Boult's Everest Vaughn Williams 9th is still mentioned as being recorded several months after the composers death. It was actually begun some 7 hours after the composer's death (it was an already scheduled session) as Sir Adrian's recorded introduction on the cd clearly indicates.Welser-Most's Bruckner 5th gets a glowing review, I think. There is a paragraph at the end praising a performance but no mention of who the performers are. Dame Lympany's excellent 2 cd Chopin set on Dutton also receives high praise but there is no star rating or possibly a rosette by the recording. The recent Chandos issue of the original members of the Borodin Quartet playing the first 13 Shostakovich String Quartets are mentioned as being mono recordings from the 1960's. They are very definately Stereo and were made in the 1960's and 1970's unless the Brodin's had ESP and were able to foresee the 1970 13th Quartet. Makes one wonder if they actually have listened to the recordings as this type of error pops up quite a bit. Furtwangler's "Tristan und Isolde" gets a glowing paragraph followed by another that virtually repeats the above with the mention of a new remastering. The 1st came from prior editions. If the editors were cramped for space one would think the redundant paragraph would be ditched. Make room for another Percy Grainger review. As I said a small sampling from a list, so far, of about 30 with I am sure more to follow.

Comprehensive, no and that by the editors own admission. Reliable? Well have some large grains of salt at hand and don't believe all you read. As composer Bernard Herrmann (also banished in the new edition) once said, "Just because some idiot put it in print doesn't make it holy writ". Words that might fit both this writer and the Penguin Guide :}

The reviewers - well-known to readers of Gramophone, BBC Music Magazine and the Guardian - are very highly qualified to pass judgment on the plethora of recordings contained in this weighty tome.

I personally like "The Key Recordings" appendix and, having gleaned it, found it to be most helpful.

Like the other reviewers of this volume, it will become one of my primary source resources and I fully expect to refer to it very often - to assess the recordings I own already and to see what new ones the ever-helpful reviewers have recommended.

tcw