Gramophone

[VodkaDilc]

Nothing yet! Perhaps I'm seen as a lost cause.

[doversoul1]

Since the free copy, I've received a follow up email from the editor, admitting to the use of the IRR subscriber list, and urging me to subscribe.

If it weren't a 'no reply', I'd be tempted to respond that I am unlikely to want to subscribe to a magazine whose editor makes such a glaring schoolboy grammatical error in his first paragraph.

Did anyone else receive one?

I did and unsubscribed it (all contact from the magazine, I hope).

[Barbirollians]

I was an IRR subscriber and didn't get a free copy ! I am rather annoyed by the liquidator of IRR's cavalier use of subscribers personal information . I doubt anyone here pursued IRR for a return of any part of their subscription in the liquidation.

[VodkaDilc]

I never subscribed to IRR, but have every copy here on my shelves. I discussed this with Barry I. So long as it was distributed so well in local shops, I preferred to buy a pristine copy, without Royal Mail's intervention.

[MickyD]

I was an IRR subscriber and didn't get a free copy ! I am rather annoyed by the liquidator of IRR's cavalier use of subscribers personal information . I doubt anyone here pursued IRR for a return of any part of their subscription in the liquidation.

No, thankfully Barclaycard gave me a full refund for the yearly subscription - then a few months later, I did receive a letter from the liquidators, asking if I wanted to pursue any claim. I doubt if I would have got anything!

No follow-up e-mail from Gramophone as yet.

[Barbirollians]

No, thankfully Barclaycard gave me a full refund for the yearly subscription - then a few months later, I did receive a letter from the liquidators, asking if I wanted to pursue any claim. I doubt if I would have got anything!

No follow-up e-mail from Gramophone as yet.

Yes the benefits of the Consumer Credit Act and credit cards .

[gurnemanz]

I got the follow-up mail yesterday (discovered it today diverted into the spam folder) and would have sent a friendly reply but DO NOT REPLY was rather peremptorily flashed up in the "To" box.

[jayne lee wilson]

I did and unsubscribed it (all contact from the magazine, I hope).

OK.... but why? Gramophone is quite good now at keeping up with new releases, music news, currently-relevant performer-interviews, articles on recent and contemporary composers, big section of new release reviews.... Collection.... in place of all the residual hostility to the Gramophone here (the Inverne years were disastrous, but in case you hadn't heard, THEY'RE OVER!)...
I'd like to hear more positive ideas from people about what they want from a print-and-digital classical music review-and-features magazine NOW. In 2016.
WHICH WILL SELL AND SURVIVE.

Anyone?

So do I carry a flame in my heart for the Gramophone? Yes, probably, because of what it did for me (alongside Radio 3) when I began serious listening in the 70s and 80s. For a while I hated what became of it. Just about stuck with it. Now it's....OK, news, features & reviews about the music I care about. Bad reviewers and good reviewers - was it ever really different beyond the 1990s? The TRULY WONDERFUL ARCHIVE (this week, I've been reading up on Shostakovich Symphony reviews back to the 1960s... what a treasure trove!).

Were IRR's reviewers, overall, more reliable as a Buyer's Guide, or less? I subscribed to IRR for most of its existence, but ...
Do I honestly miss the IRR now? Sorry, but I'm not sure I do... I miss the second-opinions of Simeone, Pullinger etc., but after that...?
Which online magazines does anyone here consult regularly?

Reissues matter less to me but yes, why not have more on them in the G.? Or just a more comprehensive listing of releases each month?
OK, great...so?
So what would you do differently, if you were Gramophone Editor today?

[doversoul1]

OK.... but why?

I unsubscribe or block all publicity emails sent to me unasked. Also, I am not interested in keeping up with new release and I don’t collect CDs. That’s all there is to it. Nothing personally against Gramophone.

[Beef Oven!]

I unsubscribe or block all publicity emails sent to me unasked. Also, I am not interested in keeping up with new release and I don’t collect CDs. That’s all there is to it. Nothing personally against Gramophone.

For people who don't collect CDs, Gramophone will have very little use.

[pastoralguy]

OK.... but why? Gramophone is quite good now at keeping up with new releases, music news, currently-relevant performer-interviews, articles on recent and contemporary composers, big section of new release reviews.... Collection.... in place of all the residual hostility to the Gramophone here (the Inverne years were disastrous, but in case you hadn't heard, THEY'RE OVER!)...
I'd like to hear more positive ideas from people about what they want from a print-and-digital classical music review-and-features magazine NOW. In 2016.
WHICH WILL SELL AND SURVIVE.

Anyone?

So do I carry a flame in my heart for the Gramophone? Yes, probably, because of what it did for me (alongside Radio 3) when I began serious listening in the 70s and 80s. For a while I hated what became of it. Just about stuck with it. Now it's....OK, news, features & reviews about the music I care about. Bad reviewers and good reviewers - was it ever really different beyond the 1990s? The TRULY WONDERFUL ARCHIVE (this week, I've been reading up on Shostakovich Symphony reviews back to the 1960s... what a treasure trove!).

Were IRR's reviewers, overall, more reliable as a Buyer's Guide, or less? I subscribed to IRR for most of its existence, but ...
Do I honestly miss the IRR now? Sorry, but I'm not sure I do... I miss the second-opinions of Simeone, Pullinger etc., but after that...?
Which online magazines does anyone here consult regularly?

Reissues matter less to me but yes, why not have more on them in the G.? Or just a more comprehensive listing of releases each month?
OK, great...so?
So what would you do differently, if you were Gramophone Editor today?

I quite agree, Jayne. The Gramophone bashing is very dispiriting.

If you're looking for a fall in standards then consider that 'Country Life' has featured young ladies on the cover who don't have titles!!!

[Richard Barrett]

So what would you do differently, if you were Gramophone Editor today?

Full listing of new releases every month.
Longer and more literate reviews.
More in-depth articles.

Pretty simple really - it's what they used to do until bought out by Haymarket in 1999.

[pastoralguy]

Pretty simple really - it's what they used to do until bought out by Haymarket in 1999.

As owned by a certain Baron M. Heseltine, Esq...

[jayne lee wilson]

Full listing of new releases every month.
Longer and more literate reviews.
More in-depth articles.

Pretty simple really - it's what they used to do until bought out by Haymarket in 1999.

Full New Release listing would take several extra pages (I often never got to the end of the vast tiny-print IRR ones!), as would longer reviews and features (With the Sallinen and Cerha articles recently, I felt I had all I needed to start exploring...). So would such a publication still be viable in 2016? It might, but only if more subscribers were prepared to embrace online editorial and/or editions. (Or bother to subscribe or buy it at all, rather than sneering and nitpicking...)

IRR was a brave attempt to do something like this, but faltered on the reliability of reviews (I was often shocked by the discrepancy between an IRR reviewer's account of a recording and my own impressions after purchase (I sent a few back), which hasn't happened with Gramophone nearly as much...). With IRR you were more than usually reliant on a very few trusted writers. (When Gramophone was at its worst as well, I just ended up trusting my instincts really, and never mind reviews...! But I discovered that - of course - it's much more exciting to listen without knowing what will happen! )

And IRR never managed to include features, in-depth or not, apart from Too Many Records and a very occasional Collection-style survey.

Finally it couldn't be quite what it wanted to be, took too long to go digital and only to a limited extent, never created an archive, and - just couldn't sell enough. So what does that tell us?

[Richard Barrett]

would such a publication still be viable in 2016?

This is the question, isn't it? The answer is probably that it depends on what kind of profit you want to make out of it, which probably wouldn't be enough to make a large company like Haymarket think it worth bothering with. Dumbing down and leaving behind the (probably relatively small) constituency of more discerning readers takes a lot less effort, as we see from Radio 3. It's not a matter of sneering and nitpicking, it's the logic of the market.