almanacs and yearbooks

This latest edition of the Penguin Guide to CD's & DVD's remains an indispensible resource for the lover of classical music. This is still the most complete, comprehensive and up-to-date guide to what CD's are available and how a number of talented and experienced reviewers rate them. All major composers are listed as are all of their major works;numerous CD's are reviewed and recommended for each. Ivan March, editor, has made some changes moving some composers to the semi-annual update book due to size constraints. He has added a very useful "key" that designates certain CD's as building blocks for a comprehensive classical CD library and an appendix listing recommended CD's of certain select performances for certain "important" composers.

The Gramophone Good CD Guide, Third Ear(a bit dated), and The Rough Guide are good supplements to The Penguin Guide. The Penguin is still the book to own if you could only choose one. It is important to remember that some CD's covered are only available in Europe, although they can be easily ordered over the internet from UK or European suppliers.

This volume comprises 1556 pages and each one of them is a treasure-trove of opinion,erudition,and general knowledge.
It is a completely revised edition of "The Penguin Guide" and encompasses the key - and important - classical recordings that have been newly issued and reissued on CD over the last 20 years.

DVDs have been added to this volume as well as sound-enhanced SACDs. There is a new section calleld "Key Recordings" - listed as an appendix and these are CDs or DVDs that may be used as a basis for a personal collection. It runs for 42 pages and lists some of the "rosetted" recordings that have an outstanding or extraordinary quality to the recording and interpretation. This is very helpful as the reviewers are highly-respected in their areas of expertise and their recommendations should be heeded.

The reviewers are Ivan March, Edward Greenfield, and Robert Layton, with the assistant editor being Paul Czajkowski. These men have written for "The Guardian", "Gramophone", "BBC Music Magazine", and other respected journals, magazines, and newspapers.

Their collective insights and expertise is one reason why this guide is the most highly-respected in the field. For collectors of classical CDs and DVDs this volume is indispensable and belongs in every music aficianado's library.

Timothy Wingate Ottawa CANADA

The Penguin Guide has outlasted competition from Third Ear Classical Music, The NPR Guide to Building a Classical CD Collection, The Gramophone Classical Good CD Guide and The Rough Guide Classical Music to maintain its place on Mt. Olympus in the classical music critic game. For 2003-04 the authors have added a couple new wrinkles -- a discography in the back of what they call "key" recordings being the most significant -- and adding reviews of selected DVDs in their principal volume. I think what separates this book from the others -- including Jim Svejda's now deleted "Insider's Guide to Classical Recordings" -- is the way the three authors come to agreement on recordings. All the other books are largely based on the opinions of a single reviewer and the book editor. Penguin Guide, which has been in publication continuously since 1984, has alwasy merged the opinions of its three authors, making it the most reliable and moderate of these books. I believe this is what has contributed most to its lasting value. Unfortunately, the three can come to agreement and dismiss some of the most cherished CDs in the world -- see their reviews of any Bach CD by Glenn Gould or many of Leonard Bernstein's New York recordings -- while they extoll the provincial value of certain British performers and composers whose music is of marginal value worldwide. Still, there is no sugar coating the fact that Penguin Guide is the most long-lasting and authoritative guide in classical music criticism. The newest tome, with its additional DVD reviews and the helpful key recording appendix, shows the authors can still be innovative after all these years. I'd like to see a new edition of Third Ear come along soon to see how well it compares. That prospect was diminished when editor Alexander Morin and Harold C. Schonberg -- the author of its foreward -- both died in the last couple years. Until someone else comes along to belt out a new edition of Third Ear with some new additions, Penguin Guide is still the best game in town for anyone wanting information on classical music recordings.