THE PENGUIN GUIDE TO THE 1000 FINEST CLASSICAL RECORDINGS Paperback – 1 January 2012

So far, so good.

Nice

Un placer buscar y localizar las joyas que aquí recomiendan. No es fácil encontrarlos pero nadie ha dicho que la excelencia fuera fácil¡¡

The old Penguin Guide was, for decades, a must have for any classical music collector as well as for the casual buyer. I bought the new editions almost every year, like clockwork, and depended on the Penguin Guide for help building my library. When a poor student, the book told me what version to buy. When I had built a decent collection and started going after multiple versions of the same pieces based on interpretation, the book helped me choose the alternatives. As finances improved and my collection grew quite large, the book waned in real value as a purchasing aid, but was still a yearly purchase to see what had changed. Through three decades of serious collecting and listening, the Penguin Guide was my partner, my friend, my guide, and a way to find more new stuff to listen to. The demise of the old Guide was somewhat inevitable: the labour of maintaining it was huge, it was somewhat replaced by on-line reviews and the trends to quick downloads and instant gratification, and the changes in the classical market made the old-style Guide unprofitable, or nearly so, I would think.Several reviewers have complained about this "shorter" guide to 1000 recordings. In comparison to the old Guide, it is a lesser entity, no doubt, but that doesn't mean it is not still a great buy. For someone building a classical library, or someone looking for the best version of piece "X", this new Guide remains excellent. It will tell you what version of each piece of music is the best, the most interesting, and the most historically important. For the repertoire collector, that's what's needed. For the person, like me, who has ten version of piece X already and wants another, different, version, then this Guide probably won't meet the need. But since that type of collector is the minority, the majority still gets a fantastically useful book, at a reasonable price, that will help guide their collection.The book starts off with a nice little history of music, ballet and opera which by themselves are worth reading this book for. A lot of the reviews of pieces are the same as from the old Penguin Guide, just with fewer versions listed and some more minor pieces missing. The writing is still clear, educated, and informative.Yes, I miss the old Guide. It was a staple of my music collecting for a while, but to some degree I outgrew it. Even encouraging others to move into classical music, the Guide was daunting to them. This new 100 Finest book is not daunting, but welcoming, and I will give it as gifts to some younger people who are starting into the classical field. There are some curious decisions as to coverage. Some composers get short shift here: Brahms is a quick mention; there's no info on Mozart's Requiem; some "staples" are glossed over. And there's the opposite: some English composers (mainly) get more pages than they deserve in most people's opinions (but perhaps that leads to discovery). But then, the authors had a set of compromises to make, and I'm sure they can't please everyone.In the end, this is still a solid reference, a labor of love, perhaps, and a necessary addition to every classical music (or even just music) collector. The Penguin Guide has been unrivalled for decades, and this is now the benchmark for smaller books on the subject. Highly recommended.

weiterer Kommentar überflüssigSchnellkost mit abfallendem Niveau gegenüber früher.Enttäuschend - aber natürlich für die Masse zugänglicherSo kann man nicht nachvollziehen, warum manche BEST of Empfehlungen zustande gekommen sind